Teenage Wasteland
by Alecca
Summary: A demon capable of manipulating time decides to round up the teenage versions of the greatest heroes of his time(Buffy,Spike,Angel,Willow,Wesley) and destroy them.Escaping to New York the 5 have to find a way to destroy the demon before it destroys them.
1. Collector's Item

Teenage Wasteland  
  
Prologue  
  
Collector's Item  
  
Los Angeles, USA  
Year: 1996  
  
She moved with an agility she didn't know she had. She could dodge the punches, avoid the kicks and, surprisingly, return a few blows herself. A rush passed through her as she continued to fight, and damn did it ever feel good! She hadn't felt this alive, this powerful in her entire lifetime. Her watcher observed her with a satisfied look on his face. She would make a fine slayer one day, he knew. She learned the moves quickly, adapted in a battle and had easily survived her first meeting with a vampire. Now, he thought as the slayer fell on the ground and crawled over to where she had dropped her stake, it was time she killed one by herself.  
  
Kicking the vampire in the face, she finally reached the piece of wood and raising it off the ground, she prepared for the final blow. That was when something totally unexpected happened. She vanished. The stake fell to the ground with an empty sound. Both the vampire and the watcher looked at the place where the slayer had just been, in shock.  
  
Galway, Ireland  
Year: 1744  
  
"I know what you did, you bastard!" the young man charged him throwing him off his feet. Liam laughed from under his weight. His hands were held down by the man's knees.  
  
"And what exactly was it I did, master McGregory?" he asked in a mocking voice. "I'm afraid I might have done more than one thing that could have upset you."  
  
"You bloody scoundrel!" the man punched him in the face. Liam continued to smile smugly. "You. Will. Apologize. To. My. Sister. Right. Away," he said punctuating each one of his words with a blow to his face. When he lowered his fist for another punch, his hand hit the hard ground. Liam was gone. He swore under his breath. That devil always got away somehow.  
  
London, England  
Year: 1877  
  
He looked at the words on the paper and sighed. The poem seemed to be lacking something. His mother always told him that once he would fall in love the rhymes and words would simply flow out of him, because he had the talent, but needed a great passion to guide it. Putting aside the paper, he told himself she was probably right. She was after all the wisest woman he had ever known.  
  
He got up from the writing table, but still couldn't get the poem out of his mind. He began pacing in the room, deep in thought.  
  
"What rhymes with splendorous?" he asked himself and suddenly getting an idea rushed back towards the table and picked up the piece of paper. The next moment, the paper gently fell on the floor. William was gone.  
  
Sunnydale, USA  
Year: 1994  
  
She was doing her homework. It was math and even though kids her age usually had big problems with it, for her, it was a walk in the park. Unfortunately some people acted nice to her just so she would do their homework as well. Her only true friend was Xander whom she helped without him needing to ask. She looked over at a picture of the two of them and smiled.  
  
The phone suddenly rang. She guessed who it was before she picked it up. Only one person ever called her.  
  
"Hi, Xander," she said cheerfully into the phone, then suddenly faded away.  
  
"Will? Will?" a curious Xander was left behind to ask repeatedly at the other end of the line.  
  
Czech Republic  
Year: 2000  
  
The three monks chanted in a circle as banging noises were heard from outside. A breeze sprang up inside the chamber. The relentless pounding on the door continued, the crossbeam beginning to splinter. A bright flash of light leaped from the center of the circle. It rose above the three monks and then with an eerie thud disappeared.  
  
The three men looked at each other in shock. That was not what should have happened.  
  
"It cannot be," one of the monks said in Czech addressing the elder of the group.  
  
"The key is lost," the older man replied in a pained voice. At that moment the door gave away and shattered.  
  
Southern Hampshire, England  
Year: 1991  
  
He walked down the hallways of the Watcher's Academy full of pride. He had been named head boy a few days ago and was very pleased with himself for it. He only wished that his father felt the same. Unfortunately, he was never satisfied, always finding something to comment on. How he didn't quite get the highest grades in the classes that revolved around physical strength. How he seemed rather slow with a sword, even though he was considered the best in his class. He could never be pleased.  
  
He sighed as he pushed open the door of a classroom, but before he had a chance to pass beyond it, he disappeared, his books hitting the floor with a loud thud startling some of the other students.

The atemporal cocoon of the demon Makhran  
  
Buffy was the first to awaken and see the strange surroundings. This was definitely not Kansas anymore - or Los Angeles for that matter. It looked like she was standing on nothing. The whole thing was a mass of squirming pale colors. No walls, no floors, no ground, no sky, only that unnatural constant movement. Strangely enough, she couldn't feel this awkward movement beneath her feet. She spotted four figures unconscious around her: a little girl with brown hair, a young redhead and three boys, two of which were wearing strange clothes.  
  
"Where am I?" she asked out loud. A hand grabbed her leg and before she had a chance to control herself, she kicked the possessor of the hand in the chest. One of the boys in weird clothes and with long hair let out a wince of pain.  
  
"For the love of...," he let out as he rolled over on the other side, gathered himself and stood up. He stopped himself from speaking when he noticed his surroundings. He was quiet for a moment before asking, with a clear Irish accent and a little hesitant: "Is this Hell?"  
  
"Don't think so," the slayer answered him. "I think hell is less rainbow-y."  
  
"Rainbow-what?" he looked at her awkwardly. She was dressed in pants and tight clothes, something that seemed awfully strange to someone who had only seen women either wearing a ton of gowns and undergarments or nothing at all. He had to admit he liked the view.  
  
"You know, like full of rainbow...Never mind," somehow she knew he wouldn't get it. Wesley was the next one to wake up and look astonished around himself.  
  
"Where are we?" he asked the girl standing a few feet away from him.  
  
"Beats me," she rose her shoulders. "One moment I was this close to dusting a vamp, the next I was here."  
  
"Vamp?" Wesley stared at her. "As in vampire?"  
  
"Yeah," she suddenly remembered that ordinary people didn't know or didn't want to know about the creatures of the night as her watcher had put it. "Cause they're real, you know. Demons too. I know it's hard to believe, but..."  
  
"I know they're real," Wesley interrupted her.  
  
"Odorous! Odorous rhymes with splendorous!" William stood up abruptly. "What...where..." he mumbled seeing the three people staring at him.  
  
"Key, key, key, key," the little girl with brown hair woke up and gasped, repeating the same word over and over again.  
  
"What did you say?" Wesley asked her, but the girl seemed to not be able to control herself.  
  
"Key, key, key," she continued to repeat.  
  
"Heeey," the redhead woke up and rubbed her temples. "Oh, boy. Does everyone's head hurt this bad?" she asked looking over at the rest of the group.  
  
"Excellent," a deep voice suddenly echoed all around them. "You've all awakened. Excellent," it repeated.  
  
"I knew it, this is Hell," Liam whispered when a large creature materialized itself in front of them. It had thick gray skin like a crust, its skull covering its face like a mask. Its claws were ten inches long and dark, while his eyes were deep and yellow. He stared at them greedily. Instinctively, Willow took a step back.  
  
"Not quite Hell, my boy," he smiled revealing sharp shark-like teeth. "It is my home. My lair since...well, a little accident I had."  
  
"Who-who are you?" William asked stuttering.  
  
"I am Makhran," he introduced himself.  
  
"You're a demon," Wesley said accusingly.  
  
"True," he admitted. "And as all demons I want nothing more than my kind to rule the Earth again."  
  
"Again?" Willow asked from behind the group.  
  
"Yes, of course, again. That's why you are all here. One way or another you're all standing between us and our rightful place in the world. You," he pointed towards Buffy. "Will become the greatest slayer of all times. You'll stop my kind innumerable times and put an end to the oldest and greatest of demons. You," he looked at Liam. "Will become a vampire and after centuries of mayhem, a curse will restore your soul and you will become humanity's champion. You," he looked at William. "Will also become a vampire because of him," he gestured towards Liam. "You'll fight for a soul to gain the love of a woman. You will die closing the hellmouth. And then come back and do much good. You," he turned towards Willow. "Will become a powerful witch and though at one point you will lose control, you will do a lot of good. As for you," he looked at Wesley. "You will help rehabilitate one of the most prestigious evil law firms in the world. And don't think I forgot you, little one," he stepped closer to the little girl. "You are the key to chaos. A hell god once tried to use you to open a doorway, but failed."  
  
"Why are we here?" Buffy asked impatient.  
  
"Good question, Ms. Summers. I was among the many liaisons that Wolfram & Hart, this prestigious law firm I was talking about, decided to drop when the new management took over," he eyed Liam in particular when he said these words. "And they have a way with terminating unwanted contracts. So," he said in a more casual tone. "They left me for dead. Heck, I thought I was dead, but those guns they used on me...triggered something inside me. Next thing I knew, here I was," he gestured around himself. "Capable of accessing everything in the past I wanted and do everything I damn well pleased without being one bit affected. It's like I never existed. Then I thought, while I was at it, why not do some good for my kind? Kill off all the would-be heroes before they ever hatched. I had a bit of a personal bone to pick with good old Wesley over there, he being the one who shot me and all...And then I thought why stop there? I could take out the world myself. All I needed was a little...key," he smiled again looking at the girl. "I know you're probably asking yourselves why I didn't simply kill you when you were kids, but call me old-fashioned, I like a little fight left in my victims."  
  
"Actually I was asking myself if you'll ever shut up," Buffy let him know.  
  
"I was wondering what exactly we could do to shut you up," Wesley stood next to the slayer. "And get out of here," he added.  
  
"Uhm, guys," Willow's little voice could be heard from behind. "How about that?" she pointed towards a hole in the cocoon that showed a city street on the other side of it.  
  
"Works for me," Buffy said smiling. "Let's move it!" she told the group as she turned towards the approaching Makhran. The demon lashed out at her with both its hands, but luckily for the slayer, he was too big and easy to dodge. Willow passed through the hole first, shortly followed by William, holding the little girl in his arms, and Liam.  
  
"Come on!" the watcher-in-training yelled after her before following the others through the hole. Noticing she was distracted for a moment, Makhran took the opportunity to lunge at her and cut her on the arm with his long sharp claws. The slayer let out a small scream before, seeing as she was hurt and couldn't dodge the demon's blows forever, made a run for the hole with Makhran on her heels. She jumped through it just as it began closing.  
  
New York City, USA  
  
Year:1991  
  
"Where are we?" William asked a little frightened, holding the girl to his chest. He looked towards Buffy and Wesley for an answer. The hole closed with a small flash of light behind them.  
  
"Don't ask me," Buffy said holding her arm in pain. "Alley is my best guess."  
  
"But an alley where?" Wesley asked, but no one bothered to answer. "And when?" he added.  
  
"We should leave," Liam said a little nervous. "Who's to say that demon isn't opening another door leading here as we speak?"  
  
"Let's go," Buffy agreed and the five teenagers and the little girl walked out of the alley and onto the streets of New York.  
  
End Prologue 


	2. Overture

Part 1  
  
Overture  
  
"Now, can anyone care to tell me what this place is?" Liam asked once they were off the streets and inside an abandoned warehouse. "Metal carcasses on wheels. Buildings in the sky. Those...lights, glowing red and green...people prisoners in boxes. Where the hell are we?"  
  
"The question is not where, but when," Wesley said as he paced around the warehouse, deep in thought.  
  
"Would you stop doing that? You're driving me nuts," Buffy told Wes and the watcher-in-training stopped his pacing and returned to the group gathered in a corner of the warehouse. Buffy was sitting on a crate, sustaining her head in one hand. Her other hand, the one that had been cut by Makhran had stopped bleeding by now and the wound was slowly, but surely beginning to heal. William still holding the girl in his arms seemed in shock after what he had just seen outside. The little girl, looking like she didn't have a care in the world, had fallen asleep in William's arms. Liam was leaning on a wall, while Willow shifted her weight from one leg to another, not really knowing what to do.  
  
"At least we can be sure of one thing. This is New York," Wesley said as he stopped in front of them.  
  
"Tell me something I don't know," Buffy closed her eyes for a moment, sighing.  
  
"America?" Liam asked incredulous. "This is not the place where I should be."  
  
"Where are you from?" Willow asked and her question sounded silly even to her. It was obvious he was Irish.  
  
"Galway, Ireland," he answered her nonetheless.  
  
"I'm...I'm from London," William said stuttering as he snapped out of his initial shock.  
  
"I'm from England too. Southern Hampshire," Wesley said and looked expectantly over at Buffy and Willow.  
  
"Oh, I'm from LA," Buffy said when she realized why he was staring.  
  
"Sunnydale, California," Willow hurried to say.  
  
"L-A. What sort of ridiculous name is that?" Liam asked grimacing.  
  
"Short for Los Angeles. You know L.A.," Buffy said, but Liam still seemed to not be satisfied with the name.  
  
"So you're Spaniards, are you?" Liam asked looking at the two girls. Buffy rolled her eyes. "I have nothing against you, I've met a few fine Spanish women in my life."  
  
"I bet you have," Buffy said unconvinced and then turning towards Wesley: "We should just buy a paper to see what year we're in."  
  
"Does it really matter what year we're in?" Willow asked and continued shyly when all eyes turned towards her: "It's not home and probably not the right time either. At least for the two of them," she gestured towards Liam and William. "Shouldn't we just try to find a way to get back or beat that...thing?"  
  
"She makes a fine point," Liam agreed.  
  
"Yeah, but how?" Buffy asked. "All we have is him," she pointed towards Wesley. "And I doubt he's a walking demon encyclopedia. Even my watcher has all these big dusty books with not so pretty pictures he searches for stuff in."  
  
"There are places where we could document ourselves," Wesley said.  
  
"Like a library?" Willow suggested. "Or the internet."  
  
"Internet?" Wesley didn't seem to be familiar with the term.  
  
"What year are you from?" Buffy asked surprised he didn't recognize the word internet.  
  
"1991," Wesley answered.  
  
"Back when the internet was young," Buffy understood now. "I'm from 1996."  
  
"199--," William seemed to choke on the words. "This is how the world is going to be in a 100 years?"  
  
"That's right," Buffy nodded. "So you're from like what 1890?"  
  
"1877," William corrected her. "I wanted to right something down when..."  
  
"You disappeared," Willow finished his phrase. "I was talking on the phone. I'm from 1994."  
  
"How about you, pony tail?" Buffy looked at Liam.  
  
"The name's Liam," he gave the slayer a cold look, before continuing: "And you best remember that, darling. Before I vanished into this nightmare, the year was 1744."  
  
"Wow, you're like practically ancient," Buffy said surprised. "Oh and so everyone knows, my name's Buffy."  
  
"What kind of name is that?" Liam asked amused. "Did your mother drink too much ale before naming you?"  
  
"Hey!" Buffy frowned.  
  
"I'm Willow," the redhead intervened before the argument continued any further.  
  
"William," the boy with brown hair and reading spectacles on his nose said.  
  
"Wesley Wyndam-Pryce. Head Boy at the Watcher's Academy," he introduced himself proudly.  
  
"Head boy?" Buffy held back from laughing.  
  
"It's a very respectable position," Wesley assured her.  
  
"I'm sure it is," Buffy chuckled.  
  
"So there's a library?" Willow returned to their initial conversation.  
  
"Not a library, though we might find some books there as well. There are specialized stores. If we look hard enough I'm sure we'll find one," he seemed optimistic.  
  
"Oh, yeah, we'll just walk around New York hoping a big shiny sign will point 'That way for magic books and demon indexes'," Buffy rolled her eyes.  
  
"Well, I don't think we'll really find a sign, magic shops are usually well hidden," Wesley said not getting the joke.  
  
"Great," Buffy sighed. "I'm sure three teenagers, a kid, ponytail over there and mister no-crease-on-his- perfect-condition-19th century-suit will go totally unnoticed."  
  
"We should just...make them look not so out of the past," Willow suggested.  
  
"You are not touching my hair," Liam warned her.  
  
"Hey, if this is the 90s you're in luck, grunge just became a way of life," Buffy said in an attempt to assure him no one was going to touch his hair.  
  
"I don't even want to know what you just said," Liam looked back at Willow. "She's right though. We can't attract people's attention."  
  
"There was a store," William suddenly remembered. "I saw it on the way here. It had clothes inside."  
  
"It's suit up time, boys," Buffy said smiling.  
  
The demon Makhran's atemporal cocoon  
  
"I find myself in front of a dilemma. I, personally cannot return to Earth at this time. Bringing those children and yourselves here has drained me of my powers temporarily, I'm afraid. That is why you are here," Makhran looked up at the five figures aligned in front of him. "Your...mission is to, if possible, bring those naughty little children back here alive, if not, I will accept dead bodies as well. If you fail to do both, at least try to keep them busy until I regain my powers completely."  
  
"And why should we listen to you?" doctor Ronald Miltser asked as one of his eyes floated behind him watching the other four figures.  
  
"I showed you what will happen to you all," the demon said. "Some of you have already experienced what the adult versions of this children can do on your own skin. The reason is simple: revenge."  
  
"I'd be more interested in taking out that lawyer bitch that's gonna kill me," Billy said pacing around the cocoon and eyeing the girl standing behind a vampire. "Who's she?"  
  
"Don't worry about her. She's just going to rampage through New York a little bit. She has a lovely tendency for violence, isn't that right, Dana?" the demon smiled at the girl that glanced around herself with a wild look in her eyes. "She is also a slayer, so I suggest you stay out of her way."  
  
"The poor thing," Halfrek said looking at the girl compassionately. "A man did this to you, isn't that right, honey?" she asked her but Dana only mumbled something in Chinese and returned to glaring around herself.  
  
"How come she's so controlled then?" James, the only vampire in the group asked staring at the girl curiously.  
  
"Oh, I assure you, it has nothing to do with her own free will. I've made sure she cannot move more than she's suppose to," the demon told him. "So do we all understand each other?" he looked at the whole group. No one protested. "Brilliant, then off you go," he opened a hole in the cocoon. Thinking back to how the kids had escaped in the first place he promised himself to force his powers to control all of the cocoon's random holes from then on. Halfrek, Ronald and James passed through the hole, but when Billy was about to follow them, Makhran stopped him. "I have a special request from you, Billy," he said and grinned looking back at Dana who could still not move from her place. Billy returned the smile.  
  
New York City  
  
"This is what you be wearing these days?" Liam asked holding up a T-shirt with an 'I'm with stupid' sign on it.  
  
"How do these close?" William asked holding up a pair of jeans with a zipper. Seeing as it was night, thanks to Buffy's superstrength, they had broken into the little shop William had seen, through the backdoor.  
  
"You just pull it up," Buffy answered as she and Willow chuckled at the sight of the half-naked William.  
  
"Oh," William seemed amazed by the zipper as he pulled it up and down a couple of times before disappearing back behind the shelves.  
  
"What are these silly things?" Liam asked holding up a pair of boxers. He didn't seem in a hurry to leave the store. He hadn't tried anything on yet. He was just looking around at everything.  
  
"Underwear. For men. Tell me you've heard of it," Buffy said amused.  
  
"I have," Liam said, but by the look on his face it was obvious he hadn't. All he was wearing was a white shirt and black tight pants. And only black tight pants, Buffy suspected.  
  
"Is this all right?" William asked stepping from behind the shelves dressed in jeans, a blue long sleeved shirt buttoned all the way up to his neck and snickers on his feet.  
  
"You might want to lose the glasses," Buffy said pointing towards the silly spectacles still on his nose.  
  
"Lose them?" William asked confused.  
  
"Never mind," the slayer neared him and took the glasses off his nose. "There. Better. And I don't know, your hair is just too neat," she fluffed his hair a bit and gave him a critic look. She stepped even closer to him and unbuttoned two of his shirt's buttons. William held his breath. He had never been this close to a woman, except for his mother. "Are you okay?" she asked him when she noticed he wasn't breathing anymore.  
  
"Yes, I just...," he took in a deep breath as she took two steps back to look at him again.  
  
"Perfect," Buffy said satisfied. "What do you think?" she asked Willow and the redhead nodded approvingly.  
  
The little girl was sitting high up on a table where William had left her, balancing her feet and staring at her shoes.  
  
"Nice shoes you have there," Willow said smiling as she leaned on the table next to her. "What's your name?"  
  
"Key," the little girl whispered.  
  
"I don't think she was given one," William said nearing them.  
  
"That's terrible," Willow said with pity in her voice. "Oh, I know, we should give her a name. How about Annie? Or Maddie?"  
  
"Or Cecily," William added to the list excitedly.  
  
"Dawn. Her name should be Dawn," Buffy suddenly said.  
  
"This from a girl calling herself Buffy," Liam noted mockingly.  
  
"It's a pretty name, but...," Willow started, but the slayer interrupted her:  
  
"I just got a really weird vibe. Her name's Dawn."  
  
"Like a telepathic flash?" Wesley suggested coming from behind the shelves where he had been browsing through the clothes.  
  
"No. Just a feeling of deja- vu. Like I already know her," Buffy answered looking at the girl.  
  
"Dawn," the little girl seemed to have learnt a new word.  
  
They suddenly heard the sound of a police car approaching.  
  
"Oh, crap," Buffy let out. Liam and William looked questioningly at the others.  
  
"Police. The people that put you in prison," Wesley explained quickly.  
  
"And we sorta broke an entry," Buffy said biting her lower lip. "I suggest we get a move on."  
  
"But I haven't changed clothes yet," Liam pointed out.  
  
"Well, I suggest you do it real quick then," Buffy said as she looked out the window of the store alarmed. The police car was getting closer. She knew someone would hear them bickering in the alley behind the store. They had been way too noisy.  
  
William wanted to take Dawn in his arms again, but the girl protested accepting only to take his hand. Outside, the police car came to a stop a few feet away from the store. Willow, Wesley, William and Dawn rushed out of the store. Buffy remained behind, waiting for Liam.  
  
"Are you done, already?" Buffy said looking behind the shelves where Liam was. She turned on her heals immediately when she saw Liam was naked. Her face suddenly became very red. "I didn't mean to..." she mumbled, but luckily for her, Liam had been way too busy trying to figure out how to get dressed to notice her short appearance at the end of the aisle. After a few moments, he stepped out from behind the shelves wearing jeans, the 'I'm with stupid' T-shirt half tucked in his pants and snickers only one of which was tied in a very awkward manner. "Let's go," she said and they ran out the door. The policemen had just entered the alley. The two teenagers ran the other way as they heard the two men yelling after them:  
  
"Police! Stop!"  
  
They ran until they caught up with the rest and then they hid in another alley to catch their breath.  
  
"Did we lose them?" Willow asked looking hesitantly out of the alley.  
  
"I don't know. I think so," Buffy said not very certain though.  
  
"Should we just casually walk out?" Willow asked.  
  
"It would draw less attention," Wesley nodded approvingly.  
  
"We should split in two groups. You know where the warehouse is, right?" the slayer looked at Wesley and Willow. The two nodded. "Okay, you two and Liam go first."  
  
Liam looked at Buffy a bit hesitant before following the two out of the alley.  
  
"We'll be fine," the slayer assured William, taking Dawn by the hand. The sound of running was heard out on the almost empty streets and Buffy peaked out to see who it was. "Shit," it was the two policemen. "We have to find another way to the warehouse," she told William. Taking Dawn in her arms now, she headed out of the alley through the other end. They winded up on a narrow street between buildings. They began running again.  
  
At one point, William accidentally bumped into a man, knocking him off his feet. Buffy didn't stop running, not noticing William's absence behind her.  
  
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to," William told the man extending a hand to help him up.  
  
"It's all right," the man took his hand and rose to his feet. A bright imprint shone briefly on William's hand before it disappeared. "Be more careful where you're running to next time," he yelled after the boy when William left him behind, trying to catch up with Buffy.  
  
It was useless. He was no match for her slayer-enhanced speed. He stopped, breathing hard, in an alley. As he leaned on a wall he noticed a girl crouched down next to a thrash can.  
  
"Piece by piece...chosen...yellow, brown," the girl mumbled as she stared at the ground.  
  
"Are you all right?" William asked nearing her. He crouched down in front of her. "You shouldn't be out here by yourself," he expended his arm towards her. The girl suddenly lunged out at him, biting his hand. William winced in pain as he quickly retrieved his hand away from her. The girl huddled back down next to the trashcan. He stood up and took a few steps away from her, incredulous of what had just happened.  
  
Looking down at his bleeding hand he suddenly felt a wave of anger passing through him:  
  
"You piece of filth!" he muttered looking over at the girl who was none other than Dana, the mentally disturbed slayer from a future William would one day live to see. Behind the corner of the alley, a satisfied Billy watched the scene unfold with a grin on his face.  
  
End Part 1 


	3. Baby dreams red

Part 2  
Baby dreams red  
  
William walked through the streets in a catatonic state, absently holding his right hand by the wrist, as if that particular bite mark was by far the most painful of his wounds. But then why was his forehead pulsating in that horrifyingly nauseous rhythm? Why was something warm trickling down the side of his face? Why was he limping? And why did he feel bruised all over his body? Why if that small bite mark was all that worried him?  
  
He came to another crossroad between alleys with tall buildings and as he was completely lost he didn't even stop to think about what direction it would be wise for him to take. As he moved in another alley his eyes stopped on a trashcan and he suddenly flashed back to the moment when he had discovered Dana in the same alley with him. He remembered his attempt to help her and the girl's violent reply. He recalled taking the lid off the trashcan and hitting the girl with it over and over again while yelling terrible things he would have never dared to utter not even in his mind before. Then of course had come the girl's attack and the pain and the wildness he saw - read - in her eyes. She could have killed him easily, but had abandoned him after a good beating in the alley. He didn't understand why. After everything he had done, he felt he deserved to die.  
  
As he stood there, lost in his misery, a hand grabbed him from behind. He was sure it was her, come to finish her job. But it wasn't her, it wasn't Dana, but another slayer that had come looking for him: Buffy.  
  
"There you are," she smiled kindly. "I thought I lost you for a moment there."  
  
"I'm standing right here," he mumbled.  
  
"What happened?" Buffy asked when she saw the state he was in. "Did the demon..."  
  
"No," he interrupted her, then hesitant added: "Muggers." He was suddenly very afraid that if she or any of the others found out what he had done they would be so disgusted by him that they would throw him out on the streets.  
  
"That's New York for you. Next time don't get lost in a dark alley," she suggested as she turned back towards the way she had come.  
  
"Where's the girl? Dawn. Where's Dawn?" he asked remembering she had carried the little girl in her arms. He was glad she hadn't been there when he had attacked that poor girl in the alley for no good reason.  
  
"She's in the warehouse. I kinda only noticed you were gone when I got there," she said in an apologetic tone. "We should go."  
  
"Yes, we should," he said still shook up.  
  
"Can you walk by yourself?" she asked when she noticed he was limping.  
  
"Yes," he tried to sound brave, but his body seemed to have suddenly realized the pain it was in and he collapsed on the ground.  
  
"Put your arm around my neck," she said as she helped him up.  
  
"I shouldn't..." he didn't think the gesture to be appropriate coming from a civilized young man. Men were suppose to be the ones who protected women and helped them when they were in pain, not the other way around. But this girl wasn't a regular woman. She was braver than anyone he had ever met. Stronger than any man, capable of moving mountains with one thought. He let her pull him back on his feet and let his hand slip around her shoulders to sustain himself.  
  
Back in the alley where William had attacked the insane vampire slayer, without a reason - or so he thought - Dana was still huddled next to the trashcan, mumbling something. Billy stepped in the alley cautiously. Not even he could guess how she would react to his presence. She looked up when she heard him approaching. He applauded her:  
  
"Good show. I knew you had the potential, but I've gotta say I'm impressed," he smirked. "I think you could actually be a far better weapon than men. Just a little violent impulse and - BAM! - you're ready to hack away," he paused for a moment. "What I don't understand is why," his voice suddenly got louder: "you didn't kill him? You could've ripped his heart out. Tore him apart. Limb by limb," he neared her and crouching down next to her whispered: "Piece by piece." He pulled away laughing when she lunged at him. "I thought we had this discussion once, Dana. And I don't like repeating myself. I can hurt you. Worse than any psychotic human ever will. Get up," she told her and Dana looked up at him. "Get up! Or do you want me to get those two nice policemen over here? I'm sure they'd just love to have a little target practice with you."  
  
Dana stood up from the ground slowly.  
  
"Good girl," Billy smiled. "Now, what are you going to do next time you see him?" he asked, but the girl didn't answer him. "You know, he might not look like much right now, but one day, he'll be the one hurting you. That's why you have to stop him, Dana."  
  
"Head and heart. Keep cutting till you see dust," she murmured.  
  
"That's right," he smiled. "Keep cutting," he stepped behind her. He put his hands on her shoulders. The girl twitched nervously under his touch. "Now, sick 'em," he whispered in her ear.  
  
"Well, it was about time you got back," Liam let out when Buffy, still holding on to William, entered the warehouse.  
  
"What happened?" Willow asked concerned when she saw the state William was in.  
  
"He ran into a few muggers," Buffy explained as she helped William sit down on a crate. "That's New York for you."  
  
"A few muggers did that to you?" Liam smirked. "What kind of man are you? Did she rescue you?" he asked mockingly pointing towards Buffy.  
  
"Shut up, ponytail, or you sleep on the streets tonight. See how cocky you feel after a night all by yourself out there," the slayer replied sharply.  
  
"I'd be better off without the lot of you holding me back," Liam snapped back. "And don't ever tell me to shut up again."  
  
"Or you'll what?" Buffy turned towards him. "Cause just in case you didn't notice it until now, I'm a freaking slayer and I can kick your ass all the way back to the 18th century if I want to. And I'm not just bragging," they stared at each other for a moment. "Look, we're in the same pot here. Whether we like it or not. If you want to get yourself killed, then go, act all macho and walk out. Alone, you'd probably get killed in a nanosecond, but together we might actually stand a chance."  
  
"Fine," Liam gave in. He had only half-understood what the slayer had told him, but he had caught the message behind her words and though he didn't really like it, he had to except the truth: alone, he was lost.  
  
"I should've broken into a pharmacy," Buffy said as she turned back towards William and analyzed his wounds.  
  
"Where are we gonna sleep?" Willow asked looking around the warehouse. "We don't have blankets or anything."  
  
"We can't risk going out again. Not today," Buffy said.  
  
"What if only some of us go?" Wesley suggested.  
  
"It's too dangerous," the slayer shook her head. "I can't go and you could run into that demon and no offense, but I think I'm the only one here that can hold her own against him."  
  
"Modest, are we?" Liam scoffed.  
  
"She's right," Wesley admitted. He possessed the skills to battle a demon, but he didn't have the strength and agility to defeat one.  
  
"We'll just have to make the best of it," she said looking around the warehouse, not really convinced there was anything to make the best of.  
  
"But you can't sleep here, on the ground," William seemed outraged by the thought.  
  
"And you should be in a hospital," Buffy pointed out and Willow said in case he didn't understand:  
  
"She means a doctor should see you."  
  
"So you see we can't have everything we want," Buffy continued her words.  
  
"And the girl?" William looked at Dawn who was yawning and rubbing her eyes sleepily.  
  
"She'll have to deal with it like all of us," Buffy said and the boy looked over at the little girl with compassion.  
  
"Why would anyone drag someone so young in such an ugly business?" William asked sighing.  
  
"He said something about a key," Wesley remembered. "The key to chaos."  
  
"He must've made a mistake. Look at her, she's just a poor child," William said gesturing towards the little girl.  
  
"Power comes in many forms. Something doesn't have to look frightening to be powerful," Wesley pointed out. "Actually, in many cases they are intentionally harmless looking so that they don't attract attention."  
  
"So she's a key, but how do you use it?" Buffy asked staring at the girl. "Does he have to kill her or does he have to convince her to do something?"  
  
"Kill her," Wesley said with certainty in his voice.  
  
"At least we can cross out the possibility of her turning on us. Are you sure the little girl look isn't just a cover for some big scary monster?" the slayer looked at the watcher- in-training.  
  
"I can't be a 100% sure, but I don't think it's the case. Keys in human forms rarely realize they are keys, until it's too late," Wesley explained.  
  
"Would you two just stop?" William asked enraged as he covered Dawn's ears so the girl couldn't hear their conversation. In truth, it didn't really matter if she heard it or not as she was incapable of comprehending many of the things - if not all - that were spoken between the teenagers. The demon had taken her before the spell that had created her human form had been complete. Because of this she was much younger than the monks had intended her to be and unaware of her own body and mortality. She was stuck somewhere between her human body and immortal form. "You're scaring her."  
  
"We can't take any chances, William," Wesley told him. "But I don't think there's a reason to worry," he assured him.  
  
"You think he'll come after us?" Willow suddenly asked. "When we're sleeping?"  
  
"I don't know," Buffy answered honestly.  
  
"Someone should stand guard," Liam interfered.  
  
"I'm so glad you offered," Buffy said smiling.  
  
"But I did not..." Liam began, but the slayer interrupted him:  
  
"Are you going back on your word?"  
  
"No, but I didn't...," Liam started again, but Buffy asked:  
  
"So you'll do it?"  
  
"You have a way with turning words around in people's mouths," Liam said frowning, but added, defeated: "I'll stand guard, but not all night."  
  
"We'll take shifts. Me, you and Wesley," the slayer agreed.  
  
"How come he gets to sleep?" Liam asked pointing towards William.  
  
"He's hurt. He'll be lucky if he manages to sleep at all with all those wounds," Buffy said looking at William.  
  
"I could stand guard too," Willow intervened.  
  
"You're too young," Liam and Buffy said at the same time.  
  
"I'm 13!" Willow protested. "It's not like you guys are much older!"  
  
"I'm 15," Buffy said.  
  
"18," Wesley crossed his arms over his chest.  
  
"17," Liam said.  
  
"I'm 17," William gave his age too.  
  
"Okay, but she's only 2 years older than me," Willow said pointing towards Buffy.  
  
"But she's a slayer," Wesley explained.  
  
"You're being unfair," Willow pouted.  
  
"C'mon you should consider yourself lucky you don't have to stand guard. You get to sleep and still be part of the brain storming sessions," Buffy comforted the redhead, but it didn't make her feel any better. If there was one thing Willow hated that was being patronized and treated like a little child.  
  
"Am I the only one whose hungry?" Liam interfered in their conversation.  
  
"You'll have to wait till morning," Buffy told him.  
  
"Brilliant. Not only do I have to stand guard, but now I have to starve while doing it," Liam sighed.  
  
"You'll starve and like it," Buffy snapped at him. Liam shot her a dirty look, but didn't protest any further, not wanting to get into another argument with her.  
  
"Now, where do we sleep?" Wesley asked looking around the warehouse. Old crates, many of them broken, were scattered around. The floor was made of cement. "We can't sleep on the floor."  
  
"Uh, we could pull the crates together. The ones that are still intact," Willow suggested. "They'll be like very hard one person military beds."  
  
"We could line them up next to the wall, there in the corner," Buffy gestured towards a darker corner of the warehouse. "In case anyone comes in here. They won't be able to spot us right away."  
  
Wesley, Buffy and Liam began pushing the heavy crates into the corner the slayer had pointed out. They put six crates on one side and four on the other.  
  
"What could there be in these crates that makes them so damn heavy?" Liam asked catching his breath after they had put the very last crate in place.  
  
"Most of them are empty," Wesley said. "The wood's heavy on its own."  
  
"You don't think we'd be lucky enough to find pillows and covers in the full ones, do you?" Buffy addressed Wesley as the watcher-in-training struggled to open one of the crates.  
  
"Not unless you consider expired mushrooms pillow material," Wesley said taking out of the crate a jar of disgusting looking mushrooms.  
  
"Eeew," Buffy let out. "Try not to accidentally crap one open. I'd hate to have to live with the smell now that I have a visual stuck in my mind."  
  
"Can we still eat them?" Liam asked not really understanding what Wesley had meant by expired or what the slayer had gone on about.  
  
"Let me clear things up for you, ponytail, whatever you do, DO NOT eat those mushrooms," Buffy said turning towards him.  
  
"They're spoiled," Willow thought he might understand that word better.  
  
"Anything else? Something we might actually use?" Buffy asked as Wesley tried his luck with another crate.  
  
"Plastic bags," the watcher-in- training said. "We might use them."  
  
"Plastic's softer than wood," Willow lifted her shoulders.  
  
"Plas-tic?" Liam asked curiously.  
  
"It's...," Buffy couldn't really find a right definition, so instead she simply said: "Oh, here, just touch it," and handed him one of the plastic bags.  
  
"It's...different," Liam said as he touched the plastic.  
  
"William, don't you want to...," the slayer turned towards him, but stopped when she realized William had fallen asleep on the crate he was seated on with Dawn clinging onto him, asleep as well. "We'll have to move them. He can't sleep like that. His back's going to kill him in the morning."  
  
"This feels very...morgue like," Willow said as she spread the plastic bags on the crates. Buffy took off the jacket she had been wearing and made a pillow out of it. She put it on the crate that William was going to be moved on. He was going to need it more than her, he was the one who was hurt after all.  
  
"Morgue-like or not, it's better than bare wood," Buffy pointed out as she carefully took Dawn in her arms so Liam could move William.  
  
"He's as light as a feather," Liam said as he took William in his arms and carried him to the other crates. He let him drop down on the plastic bags with a small thump. The Englishman stirred for a moment, but didn't wake up. He was too tired. Buffy wanted to put Dawn down on one of the other crates, but the child protested, running back to where William was sleeping.  
  
"I guess we all know who she likes best," Buffy said observing the little girl as she snuck back into William's arms. The slayer yawned and stretched, not noticing Liam staring at her a bit too intently. She was wearing a top that, while she stretched, lifted well above her bellybutton. Wesley on the other hand noticed and took note of it. Liam looked away from the slayer and asked:  
  
"What do I have to do? Simply stand around?" he was referring to his guard duties.  
  
"That's basically it. Oh and you have to wake us up if you hear anything suspicious," Buffy said as she headed towards the crates on the left side where Willow had already sat herself down.  
  
Wesley sat down, a crate or two ahead of the ones William and Dawn were sleeping on. He took off the jacket of his uniform - he hadn't changed clothes in the shop, even if he believed that a teenager in a British prep school uniform would probably attract attention. With a bit of regret, he folded the jacket into a pillow. Looking over at Willow who was obviously feeling very uncomfortable on the plastic bags, he said:  
  
"Here, have this," and threw her the jacket. Barely catching it, Willow said:  
  
"Thanks," and folding the jacket into a pillow again put her head down on it. It still didn't feel very comfortable, but it felt a lot better.  
  
Putting his hands on his elbows and laying his head on his arms, Wesley closed his eyes. He fell asleep almost instantly. He even forgot to remove his glasses. The only one still awake, Liam began pacing around the warehouse, staring curiously at anything that seemed strange and new to him. He struggled for ten minutes to tie his snickers the right way and still got it wrong. But he didn't, for one second, spot the eye floating above them in a dark corner, observing all of his moves. After an hour the eye, retrieved - while Liam was busy analyzing the mushroom jars - out a broken window and back to its possessor, doctor Ronald Miltser who was standing in an alley behind the warehouse accompanied by the vampire James.  
  
"Why don't we just attack them now and get it over with?" the vampire asked impatient.  
  
"Patience is one of the key elements of revenge," the doctor said as his eye return to its socket. "I'm sure that for someone of your kind that's hard to understand."  
  
"I have nothing to lose. I want to die, but I don't want to go down alone," James explained. "I want to take out the one woman he loved. Under his own eyes."  
  
"As noble as that sounds, I don't know how much pleasure killing her in front of him will give you. They have yet to live their great love," Ronald pointed out.  
  
"I don't care. I'll kill her and if he survives he'll know I did it," James said.  
  
"How about a happier prospect?" Ronald suggested. "If you kill Angel, he'll never live to kill your beloved Elizabeth."  
  
"You think that's really possible?" James' eyes suddenly lit up.  
  
"Anything's possible," Ronald said smiling devilishly.  
  
End Part 2 


	4. Hyperion Live

Part 3  
  
Hyperion Live  
  
The demon watched her creation with a look of extreme satisfaction written upon her face. The building stood tall in front of her, looking like something that had at one point been beautiful, but that had, in time, lost its glamour. She grinned, feeling like dancing and singing and crushing some man's spine under her shoe. What a brilliant idea she had had! There was no way they would resist it. It was absolutely perfect.  
  
"What exactly are you doing?" Ronald Miltser suddenly appeared next to her, startling her. She hit him over the arm.  
  
"Don't do that!" Halfrek told him annoyed.  
  
"What are you planning?" he asked interested.  
  
"Well, since I was left alone, you going off with that pansy vamp and that psycho with his new pet slayer, I thought long and hard about how to turn things to my advantage. And well, ta-da," she answered him.  
  
"But what is it?" he looked at the abandoned building curious.  
  
"It's a hotel," she replied smiling.  
  
"I can see that, but why on earth would you think this would attract our young victims?" he asked still puzzled.  
  
"Because it's not only a hotel, it's the Hyperion Hotel. I checked up on a few things. This is the place where that vampire of yours is going to be living one day. Of course it's not real, just a temporary illusion, but you gotta admit it's a damn fine one," she smiled again.  
  
"And you're sure they're just going to march in there without thinking about it twice?" Ronald was skeptical.  
  
"Ronald, Ronald, take it from someone whose been around for a few thousand years, whatever attracted the vampire to this place in the future, will do the same now. Besides how many abandoned hotels can you find in New York?" she asked.  
  
"True, but this helps our...your cause, how?" he said as his eyes left his orbits to inspect the building up close.  
  
"Well, we can spy on them without lurking in the streets," she pointed out. "It has more than a hundred rooms. We can even stay in it without drawing their attention. Play with them and kill them when we're bored."  
  
"Extraordinary," the doctor was truly impressed. "I can't wait to get my hands on that little bastard."  
  
When William stirred awake, he realized he was holding something soft and warm in his arms. Looking down and seeing Dawn, he smiled. The poor child had been dragged into this whole ugly mess without a good enough reason. What sort of power could this tiny little girl hold? None as far as he could tell and she was more vulnerable than any of them. At least in case of trouble they could make a run for it, but she couldn't even do that. He stood up, careful not to wake her. He winced in pain and suddenly remembered everything that had happened the previous night. The girl. The alley. The way he kept hitting her with the lid of that trashcan...He closed his eyes trying to chase away the horrid memories.  
  
He took a deep breath and opening his eyes again, he looked around. A few feet away Liam was slumped over a few crates, seeming very used to sleeping like this, the plastic bags that had once covered the crates he was on, lying disregarded on the floor. He had a smirk on his lips which - William supposed - meant he was having a very good dream. Wesley was the complete opposite of Liam, he was sleeping on his back, very still and seeming orderly even now. A whole bunch of plastic bags were shoved under his head making a very strange pillow. On the opposite wall, Willow twisted and turned on the crates, obviously not comfortable sleeping on hard wood. As she should, William thought to himself. Women should sleep in nothing but the finest beds and silken sheets. Buffy was nowhere in sight.  
  
He stood up from the crates completely, still holding Dawn in his arms. He didn't want to put her down on the hard crates.  
  
"Here, have this," the slayer said startling William who hadn't noticed her nearing. She was holding out her jacket to him. "I made a pillow out of it for you last night, but you kept twisting and turning during the night and it sorta wound up on the floor."  
  
"You did?" William was surprised and felt very flattered by the gesture. "Thank you."  
  
"It was nothing," she told him smiling as he took the jacket and put it around Dawn before laying her down on the crates. "Did you have some sorta nightmare?"  
  
"I...don't remember," he said assuming he had been plagued, even in his dreams, by the memories of what he had done the previous night.  
  
"He, on the other hand," Buffy looked over at Liam who was still deep asleep. "Snores. And I think a rocket going off a foot away from him wouldn't wake him up."  
  
"Rocket?" William asked confused.  
  
"Oh," she had forgotten for a few moments that he was from the 19th century. "It's...this thing. Uhm, you can blast people with it or...go to the moon in it."  
  
"People are actually going to the moon?" William asked excited by the idea. "I've read Jules Verne, but I never thought that we...would ever actually get there. It sounds so silly," he paused for a moment and then wanted to ask something, but Buffy interrupted him:  
  
"It's not made out of cheese if that's what you want to know."  
  
"No," he smiled. "Do people live there?"  
  
"Oh, no, we got there, but we haven't quite figured out how to live there yet," Buffy said returning the smile.  
  
"Did anything happen? Last night? After I fell asleep?" he asked and the slayer shook her head.  
  
"Not really. Liam kept blabbering on about a floating eye, but considering he actually tasted the rotten mushrooms, I really think he was seeing things," Buffy said pointing towards an open jar laying on the floor somewhere in the warehouse. "Even I considered eating them at one point. Unfortunately, I am that hungry."  
  
"We should get some food. We can't starve ourselves," William pointed out.  
  
"We'll wait till everyone wakes up, then we can leave this place for good," Buffy said determined. "And eat."  
  
"Did you sleep all right?" William asked.  
  
"Not really," Buffy shrugged. "But I've had worse nights. Try waking up at seven after coming back from a night of slayer training at 3 am. You know that feeling when you're too tired to actually sleep?"  
  
"I don't believe I do, but I suppose it must be quite terrible," William said sympathetically.  
  
"Quite," Buffy smiled. A sudden thump startled them. Willow had fallen on the floor.  
  
"Ouch," the redhead let out and stood up with a sleepy expression on her face and her hair ruffled in an adorable way. "That's the 3rd time that happened. At this pace I'll be getting a brain trauma soon," she complained.  
  
"Are you okay?" Buffy asked her concerned.  
  
"Bruises aside, I think I'll live," Willow assured her, rubbing her elbow. She yawned and looked around. "Have you been up long?"  
  
"I had the last watch, so I've been up a while, but William just woke up," Buffy answered her.  
  
"Spike!" a small voice cried out and the three teenagers looked back at Dawn confused.  
  
"Whose Spike?" Willow asked frowning.  
  
"I don't know," Buffy lifted her shoulders. "Maybe it's someone she met before she wound up here."  
  
"That's highly unlikely," Wesley said opening his eyes. He had listened in to the teenagers' conversation without betraying the fact that he was awake. "From the looks of it, she was given a human shape only recently. Before that she was probably just..."  
  
"A key?" Buffy suggested.  
  
"You can't bring an object to life. Actually, yes you can, but you can't turn it into a human," he corrected himself. "She was probably an immense shapeless power source. Strong enough to open the gates to another dimension. She wasn't conscious before, that's why she probably has no recollection of people before she met us."  
  
"Then whose Spike?" Willow asked. "Cause none of us actually used the word spike since we got here. She must've got it from somewhere else."  
  
"It probably has something to do with us," Wesley thought. "We're all connected to one another somehow."  
  
"How? You're from England, we're from California and they're from the past," Buffy pointed out. "And she's the key to chaos," she gestured towards Dawn.  
  
"Remember what the demon said?" Wesley stood up from the crates. "We're all going to be heroes one day. And I suspect we all fit together somehow. You're the slayer," he pointed towards Buffy. "I'm a watcher. You're from Sunnydale, right?" he turned towards Willow. The redhead nodded. "That's where the hellmouth is. And the two of them," he pointed towards William and the still sleeping Liam. "Are going to become vampires. And he," he looked at Liam. "Is going to be a particularly bad one until he gets cursed with a soul. Wait a second...that sounds oddly familiar. He's from Ireland...about 200 years ago...Europe, gypsies," he muttered stray thoughts as they came to him. "Angelus."  
  
"Huh?" Buffy gave him a confused look.  
  
"Angelus. He's a vampire. He's the only ever recorded case of a vampire with a soul. He was called...the Scourge of Europe I believe. He was evil. A monster, but then he was cursed with a soul by gypsies in Romania. I don't quite know what happened to him after that, but if what the demon was saying is true, then he's going to become a champion of humanity," Wesley remembered.  
  
"And you're sure that's him?" Buffy looked over at Liam skeptical.  
  
"Unless there are other souled vampires in the world, yes," Wesley nodded.  
  
"And who does that make me?" William spoke up. "The demon, he said I'm going to become a vampire as well. Because of him," he gestured towards Liam.  
  
"Well, he sired a few men in his life, but...hmm," a coincidence suddenly occurred to him.  
  
"What is it?"William asked curious.  
  
"Spike. One of his children was named Spike," Wesley said looking at Liam.  
  
"He had children?" William was further confused.  
  
"Figures he'd suck at naming his kids," Buffy smirked.  
  
"No, no, not children as his descendants, children as the people he turned into vampires," Wesley explained. "One of them was called Spike. He was British but..." he struggled to recall the details. "But he wasn't directly sired by Angelus, but by one of his children. He had another name. I can't remember." He had, after all, read dozens of books about vampires and it was hard to recall something about a certain vampire among hundreds.  
  
"Damn it!! Could you all just be quiet?!" Liam awakened groggily.  
  
"By the way you were snoring, buddy, I don't think you had any problems sleeping," Buffy said giving him a dirty look.  
  
"I was sleeping just fine until you all woke up and started walking about and talking all at once," Liam complained standing up and yawning.  
  
"Have you stopped hallucinating?" Buffy asked smirking.  
  
"I don't know what you just said, but I don't like the way you said it," Liam said looking at the slayer annoyed.  
  
"Let's just say we did and don't," Buffy said trying to put an end to a potential fight, but only making Liam more confused in the process. "Forget it," she eventually said frustrated.  
  
"We should get going," Wesley said looking at his creased uniform jacket with regret.  
  
"Yeah, we should," Buffy said eyeing Liam one last time.  
  
"Can we eat now?" the Irish teenager asked sighing.  
  
"We'll probably have to steal something again," Buffy said frowning. "I don't think we have any money."  
  
"I have my wallet with me, but it's not American money," Wesley told them.  
  
"We can go to an exchange office," Buffy said relieved they wouldn't have to resort to stealing again. She wasn't very comfortable with it. For some reason she thought jail was not a good place to hide from Makhran.  
  
"This is your big plan?" Billy asked looking around the deserted hallways of the Hyperion Hotel. Halfrek nodded. The man's eyes wondered towards the ceiling. "I have to say...I like it."  
  
"I thought you would," Halfrek said smiling. "There's no reason to deal with this situation by splitting up. I mean I know we all want our turn at hacking those little bastards to bits and pieces, but why not do it together?"  
  
"Whatever," Billy shrugged and looked back at the girl crouched down next to the wall a few feet away from him. "What do you think, Dana?" the slayer mumbled something in Chinesse. "We'll take two rooms," he said smiling. "Preferably on the same floor."  
  
"What did you call this again?" Liam asked taking another bite out of his hamburger.  
  
"Fast food," Buffy said smiling.  
  
"I like it," Liam said with his mouth full.  
  
"You can take the man out of the 18th century, but you can't take the 18th century out of the man," the slayer said amused.  
  
"What do you mean?" Liam asked frowning and stopping on the sidewalk abruptly.  
  
"Nothing," Buffy rose her shoulders as she took another sip from her cola.  
  
"I haven't eaten that much since...," Willow chuckled. She remembered the last slumber party Xander had thrown for her after she hadn't been invited to some popular girl's birthday party. It had been just for the two of them and he had brought a tone of sweets on which they munched on all night while watching horror movies. "Well, a while anyway."  
  
"I think I'm going to get sick," Wesley complained. Fast food didn't seem to agree with him.  
  
"Next time we'll get pizza," Buffy said decisively. "Wes, you're an absolute live saver."  
  
"Glad to be of service, but I hope the money will be enough for another meal," the watcher in training said.  
  
"For another one, yeah, but for two, no way," Willow told him.  
  
"Did you like the food, William?" Buffy turned towards the young English man.  
  
"It was...different from anything I've ever eaten," William admitted. "I'm not quite sure I liked it though."  
  
"Not everyone's a fan," Buffy understood. Little Dawn walked in front of them where they could keep an eye on her and happily drank from a cold shake. "At least she seems to have enjoyed it a lot."  
  
"Yes, she does," William said smiling as they passed by a large building that looked abandoned. Liam suddenly stopped in his tracks and stared at it frowning.  
  
"What is it?" Buffy asked him following his gaze towards the building.  
  
"It's abandoned. We could stay there for the night," Liam said looking back at the slayer.  
  
"It's a hotel, I doubt it doesn't belong to anyone," Wesley pointed out.  
  
"But it isn't being used," Liam neared the wooden fence surrounding the hotel and gracefully jumped over it.  
  
"He doesn't seriously expect us all to...," Willow said, but her words were cut off by Buffy who made the same agile jump over the fence in pursuit of Liam. "I guess he does."  
  
Wesley made his way to the fence too and struggling a bit more he managed to pass beyond it. Once there, he opened the wooden gate and let the others in.  
  
"Spooky," Willow let out when she saw the hotel up close.  
  
"Abandoned usually equals spooky," Buffy noted from the steps of the hotel. Liam had already entered the building after they had forced the doors open together.  
  
"So it truly is abandoned?" Wesley asked curious.  
  
"Well, I doubt anyone's living inside it, though it's probably owned by someone," Buffy answered him. "But hey, until they come to throw us out, the place is ours for the taking."  
  
Liam came out of the hotel, covered in dust:  
  
"It's empty. Only dust and mold living in there."  
  
"Does that mean I'll actually be sleeping in a bed tonight?" Willow asked excited.  
  
"Let's hope so," Wesley said before he entered the old hotel, shortly followed by the rest. Dawn seemed hesitant to enter at first for some reason, but eventually gave in to William's pleas.  
  
The hotel was huge, spacious and full of spider webs and dust. William rose Dawn to reach the front desk and playfully ring the bell still there, covered in a thick layer of dust.  
  
"I'm going upstairs!" Willow announced and ran up the stairs while Wesley yelled helplessly after her:  
  
"We shouldn't separate just in case..." he stopped his words as the redhead had already disappeared upstairs. He shook his head.  
  
"Why would anyone abandon a hotel? Especially one as big as this one?" William asked puzzled as he put Dawn back down.  
  
"No money to support it most likely," Wesley guessed. "Should we investigate it all? Go through every room?"  
  
"Right now? Nah," Buffy said. "We'll be bored enough later. I don't know about you guys, but I'm dying for some decent shut eye."  
  
"I could use some sleep too," Wesley said rubbing his eyes tiredly. A scream was suddenly heard from upstairs.  
  
"Willow!" Buffy and Wesley said at the same time and they rushed upstairs, followed by Liam. William stayed behind with Dawn.  
  
Upstairs, Willow looked horrified around herself when the three teenagers came running towards her.  
  
"What happened?" Buffy asked her.  
  
"I heard noises. Like pounding," the redhead told them.  
  
"Probably just rats," Liam said. "There must be a few considering all the dust and filth."  
  
"Eww!" Willow let out disgusted.  
  
"If there was anyone here, he would've showed himself," Wesley said reassuringly. "Besides the door was locked, wasn't it? The windows were intact so unless there's some sort of secret passageway, then we're alone."  
  
"It's best if we don't spread ourselves too thin though," Liam said looking around the empty corridor. "Just in case."  
  
"Two rooms. One next to the other. One for us, one for you," Buffy said agreeing with Liam. "Let's go back downstairs. We left William and Dawn alone."  
  
As they left they couldn't have known that just beyond one of the doors, Billy was holding Dana still, with one of his hands over her mouth, stopping the insane slayer from continuing to pound a mirror with an old candle holder and making the teenagers inside the building aware of their presence.  
  
"Bad, bad girl, Dana," he muttered in her ear angrily.  
  
End Part 3 


	5. Things that go bump in the night

I know I haven't updated in a long time, but I have these HUGE exams that will be ocupying my free time until the beginning of July. I wrote this part only because I was feeling too sick to actually study :D I also want to point out the fact that this story isn't dominated by a precise relationship (namely B/S or B/A), it will differ from one part of the story to the next.  
  
Part 4  
Things that go bump in the night  
  
Room 132  
  
Willow was huddled in Buffy's bed with the covers wrapped around her tightly as she looked around the dark creepy room uneasy. The slayer thought, amused, that she looked like a cocoon. The redhead had been too frightened to sleep alone, so Buffy had decided to share her bed with her. However, it still didn't seem to help Willow get over her fear. Dawn, on the other hand - the slayer's eyes wondered towards the bed in the other side of the room - didn't seem to have any problems with the darkness and general eerie feeling of the Hyperion Hotel. As for Buffy herself, she had gotten way too used to being up half the night to be able to sleep until the wee hours of the morning. She was sitting in an old armchair flipping through the Hyperion's registry book, under the dim light of a lamp. A thump was heard from the room just next to theirs and Willow startled.  
  
"Did you hear that?" she asked frightened.  
  
"It's probably just one of the guys," Buffy assured her.  
  
"What if it's some.... thing that-that...wants to kill us?" Willow asked bringing the covers up to her ears.  
  
"Nah," Buffy shook her head.  
  
"How can you be so sure?" Willow asked looking over at the slayer.  
  
"Cause there probably would've been more sounds after that thump. Fighting, screaming, stuff like that...," Buffy explained. "Besides, even if it were some...thing that's after us, I'd so kill it or, you know, die trying."  
  
"That's...a comforting thought," Willow said obviously feeling even more uneasy now.  
  
"So which one do you think is cuter?" Buffy suddenly asked after a pause, smiling and looking up from the registry.  
  
"Huh?" Willow asked confused.  
  
"The guys obviously," Buffy continued to smile. "William, Liam or Wesley?"  
  
"I don't know," Willow pulled the covers down from her face, thinking about her question. "I mean Wesley's...I don't know James Bondish, William's like one of those melancholic poetic types..."  
  
"But cute melancholic poetic types," Buffy interrupted her.  
  
"Yeah," Willow agreed smiling. "And Liam...he's..."  
  
"Winner of the caveman of the year award?" the slayer suggested chuckling.  
  
"Sorta, but he has this bad boy thing about him. It's not really anything I'd go for, like ever, but a lot of girls love that. I bet he's a real ladies' man back in his time," Willow said and put her head down on the pillow.  
  
"Yeah, I guess...," she suddenly smiled. "You know I saw him naked..."  
  
"No way," Willow stood up again. "When? Where?"  
  
"Yesterday, in the store. While he was changing. And I was right. He never heard of underwear for men," she chuckled.  
  
"So which one do you like best?" Willow asked curious.  
  
"William," Buffy said positive. "Wesley's really not my type and Liam's like an animal."  
  
"You sure?" Willow looked at her suspiciously. "Cause I thought you and Liam..."  
  
"Eww no," Buffy refused to even consider it.  
  
Room 134  
  
Liam paced around the room, staring at all the things surrounding him with a tempered rage. To Wesley he seemed like a tiger in a cage. William was sleeping in his bed peacefully. They had barely managed to convince Dawn to sleep in the other room, William eventually having the final word in it, not considering it proper for a young lady such as Dawn to sleep in the same room with three men.  
  
"Look at him! How can he sleep like this?" Liam eventually blurted out settling his angry gaze on William's sleeping form.  
  
"Like what?" Wesley arched an eyebrow from his place in the armchair where he had been reading some book he had found in the room they were occupying. "Truth be told, I thought you'd be the one sleeping tightly tonight."  
  
"Can't you feel it too? The illness of this place?" Liam whipped around to stare at Wesley.  
  
"Illness?" Wesley put his book down. "The time change must be affecting you. It's natural to feel everything is out of place when you're in unfamiliar surroundings."  
  
"It isn't that," Liam shrugged it off. "Something just feels awfully wrong."  
  
"It'll get better once you get used to it," Wesley assured him.  
  
"Oh, for Pete's sake," he marched towards William's bed and yanking the covers from under him threw the boy on the floor.  
  
"Au!" William let out sleepily as he got up from the floor. "What is your problem?"  
  
"You're my bloody problem," Liam said defiantly.  
  
"I don't want to fight you," William sat back down on the bed.  
  
"Coward," Liam let out.  
  
"I don't believe problems solve themselves through violence," William said putting his head back down on his pillow.  
  
"Why you little..." Liam was about to attack William when Wesley interfered putting himself between the two.  
  
"That's enough," the watcher-in-training told Liam. "Something's obviously bothering you and it isn't William. Whatever it is it's no use to pour out your anger on him."  
  
"Fine," Liam resumed his pacing and after a few moments asked Wesley: "If everything is as fine as you claim it is, then why aren't you sleeping?"  
  
"I'm too excited to sleep," Wesley said. "This whole situation is absolutely fascinating."  
  
"That's your reason for being awake?" Liam asked mockingly.  
  
"At least I don't feel illness," Wesley mumbled reopening his book.  
  
Room 152, right above room 132  
  
"Can we kill them now?" doctor Miltser asked bored as he threw a knife in Dana's direction. The slayer was sitting helplessly next to a wall, bound and gagged. Billy had thought it fit to take the precaution in order to avoid any more incidents in the future. The knife embedded itself into the wall, a few inches away from Dana's head. "I need to work on my throwing, don't you think?" he was addressing James.  
  
"A quick kill will just not do," James said. "They need to suffer for what they did to us."  
  
"True," Billy agreed as he took the knife Ronald had thrown out of the wall.  
  
"Oh, you boys are so melodramatic," Halfrek interfered shaking her head. "Revenge is suppose to be fun. I mean here I am, providing you with the easiest way to do just that and you're all hack and torture."  
  
"Hack and torture. Sounds like a plan to me," Ronald gave his opinion as he watched Billy throwing his knife and embedding it in Dana's hair.  
  
"Would you stop that?" Hallie looked at Billy disgusted. "We need her alive, not crippled or worse, bleeding to death."  
  
"See, now you're no fun," Ronald said disappointed he had to abandon the game.  
  
"You're lucky she's not free or she'd probably detach both your arms, permanently," Halfrek brushed him off.  
  
"You give her too much credit," Billy said taking Dana's chin in his hand. "There's not a sane thought in that empty little mind of hers. If you play enough with it you can make her kill anyone and convince her to never lay a finger on you."  
  
"I'd like to see you say that when you're trapped between four walls alone with her free," Halfrek wasn't convinced. "But as I was saying, we should be having fun, not getting bored. I think it's time to scare the little kids out of bed," she said with a devilish smile.  
  
Room 132  
  
"Find anything interesting?" Willow asked gesturing towards the Hyperion's registry.  
  
"Nothing much. Except," she chuckled. "Can you believe there was a guy actually named Angel that stayed here? He was up in room 217."  
  
"Angel? Like a last name?" Willow asked confused.  
  
"No, just Angel. Like Madonna," Buffy said smiling.  
  
"And he was a guy?" the redhead asked frowning.  
  
"Yeah, it's in brackets. Male," the slayer looked down at the registry.  
  
"Maybe he was a drag queen or something," Willow suggested.  
  
"In the 50s?" Buffy didn't buy it. "Maybe he was like a real angel. Guarding someone incognito..."  
  
"Sounds like the beginning of a Hollywood blockbuster," Willow said smiling. Dawn suddenly opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling.  
  
"Dawn, is something wrong?" Buffy asked coming to her side.  
  
"Bad," the little girl said only managing to confuse the slayer. Before Buffy had a chance to say anything they heard a noise coming from outside their room.  
  
"What was that?" Willow asked staring at the door, fear suddenly gripping every inch of her.  
  
"Just stay calm. I'm sure it's nothing," Buffy said scanning the room for something heavy that she could use as a weapon in case there was something out there after all.  
  
"Bad, bad, bad," Dawn mumbled frightened.  
  
"Shhh," the slayer tried to silence her as she picked up an iron lamp and neared the door. The same sound was heard again. Like someone jumping around on the corridor. Then the sound of footsteps nearing. Buffy held her ground, while Willow sat paralyzed in bed and Dawn hid under the covers. The sound of footsteps grew closer and closer and closer until...a heavy hand banged against their door. Buffy startled for a moment, but quickly regained her composure and put an unsteady hand on the doorknob. She slowly turned it and cracked the door open. There was no one there. She opened the door wider, until, convinced there was no one waiting to jump at her any second, she went out on the corridor, her hand still clutching the doorknob. She looked down the hallway, in both directions, to see if anyone was there. The corridor was empty. She frowned, not understanding what had happened, until realization hit her.  
  
"That son of a....Oh, when I get my hands on him!" she marched towards the guys' room furious and slammed the door open, startling those inside. Wesley fell out of his armchair - where he had fallen asleep - on the floor with a thump, while William only opened his eyes sleepily as Buffy pointed at Liam threateningly and said: "It was you, wasn't it?"  
  
"What are you talking about?" Liam asked, genuinely surprised. He still hadn't been able to fall asleep, but he had been way too lost in his own thoughts to hear the sounds coming from the corridor.  
  
"Don't play dumb with me, you're the only one here who could pull a stupid stunt like that," the slayer said.  
  
"You better take your accusations elsewhere before I really get angry," Liam said dead serious and Buffy immediately felt sorry for lashing out at him like that.  
  
"It wasn't you," the slayer sighed and ran a hand across her tired face.  
  
"What happened?" Wesley asked standing up from the floor.  
  
"We heard footsteps, someone knocked on our door. When I opened it, there was no one there. I figured...," she looked at Liam.  
  
"That I did it?" Liam scoffed.  
  
"You do seem like the type. Immature and all," Buffy pointed out.  
  
"I'm very mature," Liam stared at the slayer hard in a way that made Buffy's face, for some reason, turn red. Whatever he had meant by mature, it was definitely not what Buffy had previously referred to.  
  
"Okay, sorry, then," Buffy said and quickly retrieved from the room. Liam smiled.  
  
"What was that all about?" William asked confused as to why the slayer had left the room in such a hurry.  
  
"Liam was just being his charming self," Wesley said shaking his head exasperated.  
  
As Buffy reentered room 132, she didn't notice the hand gripping the chandelier or the pair of shoes, that weren't there before, leaned against the wall. As soon as the door of room 132 slammed shut behind the slayer, Halfrek snickered.  
  
"I could do this all night," she said smiling.  
  
"This is childish," James interfered annoyed.  
  
"Well, make your own fun, James darling," Halfrek suggested as Ronald concentrated and his feet, along with his shoes began walking down the corridor very noisily again. The shoes immediately stopped when Liam opened the door to the boys' room and stared out into the dark corridor. The hand lowered itself from the chandelier and tapped Liam on the shoulder lightly, hiding in the darkness when the boy turned around startled.  
  
"You think spirits be haunting this place?" Liam asked Wesley when the watcher-in-training joined him in the hallway at his request.  
  
"I suppose it's a possibility. Especially if it's been abandoned for a longer period of time," Wesley said eyeing the corridor with a frown. He startled when he came across a pair of eyes shining in the darkness, but when he blinked, they were gone. "I must be getting really tired," he said rubbing his eyes.  
  
"Why? What did you see?" Liam scanned the darkness again.  
  
"Nothing, it was just my eyes playing tricks on me," Wesley assured him. "I need to go to the bathroom. You can go back inside."  
  
"You're not going anywhere alone," Liam said. "We can't risk anything bad happening. Whatever these things are, they might attack only when one of us is alone. We just have to make sure that doesn't happen."  
  
"Fine, but just for the record I don't need anyone holding my hand," Wesley agreed to let him come along. "What about William?"  
  
"He isn't wondering down dark hallways, now is he?" Liam pointed out. "Besides, if something does happen, he can scream and Buffy'll hear him."  
  
"You do have a point," Wesley sighed and walked down the hallway with Liam close behind.  
  
"I think I will make my own fun," James told Halfrek smiling before following the two teenagers towards the bathroom.  
  
"Good for you," Halfrek said and turned towards what was left of Ronald's body: "How about we try and choke one in his sleep?"  
  
"The one that's alone?" Ronald asked as his eyes returned in their sockets. "Billy won't be very happy about that."  
  
"Yeah...," Halfrek thought about it for a moment before saying, cheerfully: "Well, we don't have to kill him..."  
  
"What do you have in mind?" Ronald asked intrigued.  
  
"Ever heard of the term 'urban legend'?" Halfrek asked smiling.  
  
Liam stood in the bathroom, outside the individual toilet booths, waiting for Wesley and looking at himself in the mirror. His hair really looked out of place with this strange outfit he had picked out for himself, but cutting it short seemed even stranger to him. He heard a sound, like a whoosh, behind him. He turned around, but nothing was there. He sighed and looked back at the mirror. This place was beginning to get to him. What he could not see in the mirror however was James, in game face, lunging over his shoulder.  
  
End Part 4 


	6. Walk like a man

Okay, so you have all the right in the world to be pissed at me for not updating in such a long time, but real life has been kicking my ass for the last couple of months. I had my end-of-highschool exams as well as my university admissions exams which I'm happy to say ended well and I am now a future jurnalism student :D From now on, I promise, there will be more updates on this story as well as on "Dawn of the Slayer Age"...  
  
Part 5  
Walk like a man  
  
Tic. Tic. Tic. Like the incomplete sound of a clock ticking. Tic, tic, tic. No tac. Right outside the windows. In the pitch black. Maybe it was a branch. But he knew it was a ridiculous idea because he had seen the exterior of the Hyperion and there were no trees outside it. Tic, tic, tic. Where was it coming from? He dared to open his eyes, but nothing seemed out of place in the room. The annoying ticking sound was suddenly replaced by a screeching noise. William stood up in his bed startled. He walked over to the window and peaked outside. Nothing. He turned around and contemplated turning on the lamp. He eventually decided against it, not wanting to give Liam another reason to mock him. He returned to bed.  
  
The doorknob turned slowly and the door cracked open, just a few inches before slamming itself shut. William looked at it confused and said, out loud, for his own comfort:  
  
"It's just drafty. The wind must have pushed it open."  
  
He tried to laugh it off nervously, but when one of the windows broke, he practically jumped out of bed. Something grabbed him from behind and shoved him back down on the bed before he had a chance to react. That 'something' disappeared before he had a chance to see it. As he tried to rise again, a hand - just a hand! - grabbed him by the neck and kept him pinned on the bed. Another hand appeared above him, holding a knife, just as an eerie voice asked:  
  
"Do you want to play doctor?"  
  
William struggled to free himself, but the hand had an iron grip on his throat. He did the only thing he could do: he screamed.  
  
"Au," Liam let out as Wesley joined him in front of the mirrors.  
  
"What is it?" the watcher-in-training asked.  
  
"There must be some pretty big mosquitos in these parts," Liam said touching his neck. When he drew back his hand, his fingers were covered in blood.  
  
"Let me see," Wesley looked at his neck and saw he had two recently made small holes in it. "Are you sure this was an insect?"  
  
"What else could it be?" Liam shrugged. As the two boys left the bathroom they didn't notice James stuck up on the ceiling doing his best not to fall down from it. Wesley had ruined his plan. Simply eating Liam was not an option, there would have to be some depth to it. Some real pain, not just physical.  
  
"He's such a total ass!" Buffy said, as she paced in their room angrily under Willow's nervous gaze.  
  
"Uh, this is making me sick," the redhead said referring to the fact that she was following her pacing. They suddenly heard a scream coming from the other room. Buffy and Willow shared a quick look. Willow jumped out of her bed and grabbed a lamp and then they both headed out of the room, leaving Dawn alone. The little girl stared into the darkness feeling uneasy.  
  
"They left you all alone," a calm voice said startling her. "It's all right, you don't have to be frightened. I don't want to hurt you," Makhran assured her as he stepped out from the darkness so she could see him.  
  
"You," she remembered seeing him in that odd place she had woken up in after her creation.  
  
"Yes," Makhran smiled. "It's true your friends have all the reasons in the world to fear me, but you and I could be friends, little Dawn. Very good friends."  
  
"No!" Dawn protested.  
  
"There is a reason I took you out of your time when I did," he said moving calmly towards her in a very non-threatening way. "You see, those men, those monks that made you, didn't have a chance to finish their incantation so you're...incomplete. Stuck between this human form and your true one. In the original history they managed to make you whole, to send you to the slayer's home for protection, they purposely took away from you all your power, but now...all that greatness lies in those tiny little hands of yours," he sat down on the edge of the bed and took her hands in his. "Together we could make great things happen. I can make you real again."  
  
"Real," Dawn said pulling her hands away and staring at the covers of the bed with an empty look in her eyes. "Buffy. Mom," a glimpse of something seemed to flash into her mind as she spoke those words. "Mom," she repeated with a smile.  
  
"It's not real, Dawn," Makhran tried to convince her. "Nothing of it is. You're a stranger to them, but I know your true nature, your true self. I know you."  
  
"Mom," she repeated again and her smile widened even more. "Bye-bye," she looked at Makhran and her eyes glowed for a moment and the demon began fading away.  
  
"Dawn...," he said frowning. "Think about it! Think about how good friends we could be..." those were his last words before he faded away and found himself back into his atemporal cocoon.  
  
"Mom?" Dawn asked standing up in her bed. No one answered. She got out of bed and left the room. "Mom?" she asked again when she was in the hallway. Again, no answer. She had to be there, she knew that. She headed down the hallway silently, occasionally calling out the name of the woman she had suddenly remembered when Makhran had been talking to her about greatness and her sense of reality.  
  
Buffy and Willow pushed the door of the boys' room open and were greeted by a startling sight. William was being held down on the bed by a hand while another one, holding a knife, was cutting up his chest while the boy screamed in agony.  
  
"What is that?" Willow asked distressed, hugging the lamp she had taken from their room to her chest.  
  
"Maniacal hand from hell?" Buffy suggested as she rushed to William's side, grabbing the hand with the knife with both of her hands. The knife turned towards her and the murderous hand tried to stab her, but the slayer struggled to keep it at a safe distance from herself. "What do I do with it?" she asked as she leaned into a wall for better support.  
  
"Uh, the closet!" Willow said running over to it, but the other hand grabbed her by the right foot, making her stumble and fall to the floor. Once she was down, the hand traveled up to her neck and proceeded to choke her. Willow tried to scratch it, hit it with the lamp, but nothing worked. Meanwhile Buffy made her way to the closet and shoved the hand along with its knife inside it. The hand stabbed the closet door several times, but luckily it was thick enough not to break. The slayer quickly made her way to Willow and pulled the other hand off her. She wanted to lock it in the closet with the other one, but it made a quick getaway into the hallway. It was gone before Buffy had a chance to catch it.  
  
"Damn it!" she stomped back into the room annoyed. Willow was still on the floor trying to catch her breath. "Well, at least we got the one with the knife," she added looking towards the closet door that was beginning to rattle. "You okay?" she asked turning towards the redhead.  
  
"Just...give me a mo...moment. I'll be...fine," Willow said taking in deep breaths. "William..." she looked meaningfully towards the bed.  
  
"He doesn't look so good," Buffy said nearing him. The sheets were covered in blood and his chest was sliced up, but as far as she could tell, the wounds weren't deep. "William, can you hear me?" she asked gently as she put a comforting hand on his face.  
  
"Love...love...is...," he mumbled, his eyes barely open.  
  
"His trying to make poetry," she looked back at Willow, who had finally risen from the floor, smiling.  
  
"Poor guy," the redhead said sympathetically.  
  
"William," Buffy brushed some strands of hair from his face. "William...open your eyes..."  
  
"Bu-buffy?" he asked weakly. "What...what happened?" he was confused.  
  
"You were attacked by an evil hand," the slayer said with a smile. "But you survived."  
  
"My...," he gestured towards his shredded shirt.  
  
"It's okay," Buffy assured him. "We'll get you a new one. We have to clean him up," she added towards Willow. "What are the odds of us finding a first aid kit around here?"  
  
"There should be a good chance," Willow said nodding. "Considering all the stuff we found. The covers, pillows, lamps...but it would probably be downstairs," she added fidgeting.  
  
"Great," Buffy mumbled. "We can't leave him here alone."  
  
"What happened?" Wesley asked as he and Liam entered their room and saw the bloody William.  
  
"Killer hand," Willow said gesturing towards the closet.  
  
"Just where the hell have you two been?" Buffy asked leaving William's side and looking at them crossly.  
  
"I just needed to use the bathroom," Wesley explained.  
  
"Oh and suddenly the only functional bathroom in this place is a mile away?" Buffy asked annoyed.  
  
"Not exactly a mile, but at the other end of the hallway," Wesley corrected her. "I even had to use the ladies room because the men's room is in pieces."  
  
"You shouldn't have left him alone," Buffy insisted.  
  
"And what was I suppose to do with him?" Liam asked frowning and gesturing towards Wesley. "Leave him alone in those damn dark hallways?"  
  
"You should've called me!" the slayer said.  
  
"I suppose you'd like that, wouldn't you? Spending some time alone with him," Liam said mockingly. The slayer shot him an annoyed look.  
  
"This isn't the time to argue," Wesley interfered. "Now what killer hand is she talking about and what's in that closet?"  
  
"The hand's in the closet," Buffy said calmer now. "It's like...a detached hand from the wrist down. There were two, but I only managed to catch one and it still has a knife."  
  
"We're talking about a hand?" Liam asked confused. "Just a hand?"  
  
"Just a hand," Willow said nodding.  
  
"Where did it come from?" Liam asked looking at the closed closet curious.  
  
"We don't know," Buffy said. "We came in when we heard William screaming. The hands were already here and doing a hack job on him."  
  
"We should make it stop," Willow suggested staring at the closet door. The tip of the knife was already visible as the hand stabbed away at the door.  
  
"How? It's not like it has a heart or anything," Buffy pointed out. "Any ideas, head boy?" she looked at Wesley expectantly.  
  
"Well, it's not the hand of a ghost," the watcher-in-training stated the obvious. "That means it belongs to somebody. We kill that somebody, we kill the hand."  
  
"The hand looked totally human. And if you haven't checked the slayers' resume, we don't kill people," the slayer told him.  
  
"Can't we simply butcher it?" Liam suggested.  
  
"What if we cut it in two and we get two smaller killer hands?" Willow didn't like the idea.  
  
"Who said we'd be cutting it in two?" Liam asked with a smile. "Just give me a hammer and I'll take care of the rest."  
  
"Though that sounds nasty, I haven't heard a better plan so...," Buffy agreed with Liam.  
  
"Wait, shouldn't we analyze it?" Wesley protested. "Shouldn't there be something left of it to analyze after we kill it?"  
  
"You'll have your analysis, doc," Buffy assured him smiling. "But you're going to be analyzing hand mush. Any idea where we might find a hammer or something really really heavy?"  
  
"Downstairs. I saw some tools scattered around in one of the back rooms," Wesley explained.  
  
"Stay here, I'll be right back," the slayer prepared to venture downstairs by herself.  
  
"And where do you think you're going by yourself?" Liam asked stopping her from advancing by grabbing her by the arm.  
  
"It'll only take me a minute," Buffy said pulling her arm away from his grasp. "Now sit."  
  
"Buffy, take him with you," Wesley agreed with Liam. "We can't risk someone else getting hurt."  
  
"Fine," the slayer shrugged. "Come on, pony tail, we have a kit and a hammer to find," she told Liam as she headed out into the hallway.  
  
"Kit?" Liam asked confused as he followed her out. "What is that? A cat?"  
  
"Should we...I don't know, try to at least get that shirt off him?" Willow asked turning back towards the now unconscious William.  
  
"Not until we have a clean bandage," Wesley thought it was a bad idea. "We'd only make the wounds where the blood already coagulated bleed more."  
  
"So we wait," Willow said startling slightly when the hand in the closet stabbed the door harder than it had done before. "I hope they come back with that hammer soon."  
  
"They will," Wesley assured her.  
  
"Dawn," she suddenly remembered. "We left her alone. We just rushed in here and...we totally forgot about her," she panicked for a moment, before adding a bit more relieved: "But we didn't hear any screams. That's a good sign."  
  
"Yes, unless of course someone smothered her to death," Wesley said worriedly.  
  
"Oh, god!" Willow let out and they both rushed into the girls' room to find it empty. "Oh god, oh god, oh god," the redhead kept repeating.  
  
"There's no trace of blood," the watcher- in-training tried to calm her and himself down.  
  
"She wouldn't have wondered off by herself," Willow said desperately.  
  
"You don't know that," Wesley pointed out. "We barely know what any of us are capable of doing. You heard what that demon said...Maybe she just went looking for you and got lost in the hotel."  
  
"We have to find her," Willow said.  
  
"Not until Liam and Buffy come back. We can't leave William alone again," Wesley reminded her. "Especially not now, when he's vulnerable and a killer hand with a knife might escape from that closet and another one is running loose around the hotel."  
  
"But by the time they get back, it could be too late," Willow complained. "I could go...I could..."  
  
"Don't talk nonsense, Willow, you're barely 13. At least in body. Anything that could kill Dawn could easily kill you as well," Wesley tried to reason with her.  
  
"I should've stayed with her," Willow blamed herself for it. "It's not like I helped Buffy or anything..."  
  
"I know it's frustrating we can't do anything about it," Wesley said. "But if it's of any comfort to you I don't think the demon that's after us means to kill Dawn. Use her to open up a hell dimension maybe, but not kill her. And whatever's in this hotel, he won't let it kill her because he needs her."  
  
"I do remember something he said...," Willow was a bit calmer now.  
  
"We should get back to our room. We'll leave the door open so we can hear if anyone's in the hallway," Wesley said and Willow nodded weakly.  
  
"Back room," Buffy repeated as she stared into various dark empty rooms on the ground floor. "We should've asked for better directions."  
  
"Are there no candles down here?" Liam asked feeling frustrated as he searched the dark like a blind man.  
  
"I doubt it. The chandelier was collapsed somewhere and the light bulbs are all smashed so no light either. We'll just have to stick together and guess what's what," she said as something darted across the floor and she let out a small scream digging her nails into Liam's shoulder painfully.  
  
"Damn, woman, what did you do that for?" Liam asked rubbing his shoulder after Buffy let go.  
  
"Rat," she explained.  
  
"Some things never do change. No matter what age of the world you're in," Liam noted with a smile.  
  
"It just appeared out of nowhere, okay? It could've been the other hand just as easily," Buffy defended herself.  
  
"Whatever you say, darling," Liam said chuckling.  
  
"Don't you darling me," the slayer said frowning as she entered yet another dark room.  
  
"It annoys you?" Liam asked and his voice sounded rather distant to Buffy.  
  
"Liam?" she asked looking around and not seeing him.  
  
"Then I won't stop until you stop calling me pony tail, darling," Liam sounded amused, but even further away.  
  
"Liam? I think you entered the wrong room!" Buffy yelled so he could hear her.  
  
"What?" he couldn't hear her very well either. "Where are you?"  
  
"Just get out of whatever room you're in!" Buffy said looking around. She couldn't spot the door.  
  
"I think I found the...aaah, kit. It's a box with a red cross on it...just like you said," he yelled.  
  
"I can't hear you!!!" she screamed, as she felt the walls for a door, but found none.  
  
She was walking down the hallway of the second floor when she heard noises coming from one of the rooms. She hurried towards it enthusiastically and asked as she pushed the door open:  
  
"Mommy?" But it was not mommy. It was not what her fragmented memories had shown her. Inside the room there was a woman, but it was definitely not her...This woman was young, and tied up and bleeding from the head while a man stood a few feet away from her.  
  
"Well, well, what do we have here?" Billy asked with a smile.  
  
End Part 5 


	7. The Darkness

Part 6  
  
The Darkness  
  
"Buffy!" Liam screamed as he entered room after room on the ground floor of the Hyperion Hotel. But the slayer was nowhere to be found. At one point he had been able to hear her voice, then it had turned into a whisper, then into a muffled sound and then into silence. "Buffy!" he banged on the walls of the hotel trying to make himself heard by someone who he thought was lost somewhere inside. "Come on girl...," he murmured to himself frustrated. He held the first aid kit in one hand and a hammer in the other. William needed the medicine or whatever that strange little box contained urgently, but he couldn't bring himself to leave without the slayer. What if she were harmed while he was gone? What if he wasn't there when she screamed after him? He sighed. He had to run upstairs and leave the first aid kit and be back before anything bad could happen.  
  
As he put his plan into motion, he didn't hear Buffy screaming and banging on the place on the wall that had once been a door - and it still was one from the outside, but she didn't know that.  
  
"That's a neat little trick," James said as he and Halfrek observed the scene through the ceiling, sitting on the floor of a first level room. "How'd you do it?"  
  
"I shifted them into different planes. The boy's in the real world and our darling slayer is lost in the astral plane of the imaginary Hyperion Hotel," Halfrek said smiling.  
  
"Can something imaginary have an astral plane?" James asked frowning.  
  
"Not that I know of," Hallie chuckled.  
  
"So you just created it?" James still didn't understand.  
  
"Technically," she nodded. "It's a deviation of the real meaning of astral plane. She's stuck inside a mutation of the real plane. It shouldn't exist and I have no idea why in hell it actually worked, but it was worth a shot. And ta-da. The funniest thing is I have no idea what's going to happen to her inside it."  
  
"Then this is going to be an interesting show to watch," James said with a grin.  
  
"Great!" Ronald let out annoyed. "And while you two are enjoying your little show, my hand is stuck in a goddamn closet with those murderous little bastards plotting to do who knows what to it."  
  
"It's your fault it happened," Hallie shrugged. "You had to get greedy and send in both your hands. With that scrawny little boy, one would've been more than enough."  
  
"You're not going to help me get it back?" Ronald asked.  
  
"Nope," Hallie said. "It would spoil all the fun we've been having."  
  
"I'd rather see what happens to the slayer," James admitted.  
  
"Fine," Ronald practically stomped.  
  
"Are you going to pull a one man, one hand, rescue mission, doctor?" Halfrek asked mockingly.  
  
"I'm going to see if Billy..." Ronald started, but was stopped by both Hallie and James' laughter.  
  
"Billy? You really think Billy's going to care about your damn hand?" Hallie asked still laughing. "You might as well take your help petition to the loony slayer! She'd probably make sure you'd lose your other hand as well."  
  
"Look, it's better if you just forget about it," James said more serious now.  
  
"You're no fighter, doc, your detachable limbs come in handy when it comes to games and spying, but when it comes to combat, those two kids left guarding your hand can kick your ass. And that's not even counting the little girl," Halfrek pointed out. "So give it a rest. You lost one hand, at least you're not dead. Yet."  
  
"What an absolutely comforting thought," Ronald said mockingly.  
  
Liam barged into the room, startling Wesley and Willow.  
  
"Here!" he tossed the first aid kit to Willow and was about to run back down with the hammer still in his hands.  
  
"Wait! Where's Buffy?" Willow asked putting herself between him and the door before he had a chance to leave.  
  
"She's lost somewhere downstairs. I have to go and find her," Liam said gesturing for her to move.  
  
"Dawn's lost too," Willow blurted out and Liam finally stopped trying to run out of the room.  
  
"What?!" he let out incredulously. "How?"  
  
"When they came here, they left her alone in the room. She must've wondered off somewhere while they were busy fighting the hands," Wesley explained.  
  
"Brilliant! Just bloody brilliant," Liam mumbled. "And he can't be left alone," he eyed William with an annoyed look. "I'm going down to fetch Buffy and then we'll both go and search for Dawn."  
  
"Buffy can take care of herself, Dawn can't," Wesley pointed out. "She can wait."  
  
"No, she can't," Liam insisted.  
  
"This isn't a good time to be stubborn, Liam," Wesley said firmly. "Lives are at stake."  
  
"You go find the girl, she stays with William, I'll search for Buffy downstairs," Liam settled it once and for all.  
  
"That's a good way to get everyone killed," Wesley pointed out. "What about the killer hand in the closet?"  
  
Liam frowned before suddenly heading for the closet, yanking its door open, grabbing the hand - before it managed to stab him - without even twitching and laying it down on the nightstand. He slammed it with the hammer one time hard. The hand turned into a bloody mass of flesh and broken bones. His shirt was stained with blood when he turned back towards Willow and Wesley.  
  
"What killer hand?" he asked with a smirk. "I'll be downstairs if..." his words were cut off by a horrifying scream that echoed through the entire hotel. In a room right on that floor Ronald Miltser hadn't been able to bite back a cry of pain when he had felt the full extent of Liam's blow as his wrist began bleeding and he knew his hand was gone forever.  
  
"It's coming from somewhere close by," Wesley said and the three of them quickly left the room and opened the doors of each room on that floor with a speed that barely left Halfrek, James and Ronald any time to make an exit. Luckily for them, Halfrek could teleport and they were out of that room in an instant. But there was something they had left behind - Ronald's blood. And it proved that their chasers were no ghosts and that something else, besides themselves, was currently residing in that hotel.  
  
"It's definitely human," Wesley said touching the blood stains with his fingers and then smelling them.  
  
"That's a comforting thought," Willow said hesitant. "Right?"  
  
"Not if he's some sort of mage, "Wesley said. "Then we're, as you Americans put it, screwed."  
  
"Wonderful," Willow muttered.  
  
"I wager he was the one the hand belonged to," Liam said looking around the room. "Unless there were more than one and they got into a fight, but they would've left the wounded behind..."  
  
"Why are you talking in plural?" Willow asked confused.  
  
"The hurt one was here, a woman was there," he pointed towards the signs of high heels on the carpet. "And another one, most likely a man was there," he gestured towards a spot on the floor that was clean, unlike the rest that was dusty and filthy.  
  
"There were three?" the redhead suddenly felt uneasy. "We have to find Dawn."  
  
"She probably wasn't here or she would've screamed," Wesley tried to comfort her.  
  
"What the hell is that?" Liam asked staring baffled at a hole he discovered in the floor that overlooked the rooms he and Buffy had been going through on the ground floor just minutes before. He tried to put his foot through it, but found that oddly enough, the floor was still there, but it was somehow invisible.  
  
"One of them has magical powers," Wesley said now certain.  
  
"It was their doing then," Liam said referring to Buffy's disappearance.  
  
"Most likely," the watcher-in-training agreed. "Go and try to find her, but be careful, if magic's involved there's no limit to what could happen." Liam only nodded and headed out the door in a rush while Wesley and Willow returned to their room. With all the commotion they had forgotten about poor William, who was now unconscious.  
  
"Can we take his shirt off now?" Willow looked at his bloody chest hesitant.  
  
"We have no choice, I'm afraid," Wesley said as he opened the first aid kit.  
  
Buffy desperately clawed at the walls around her. She had broken two nails and was slowly becoming claustrophobic. The room seemed to be getting smaller and smaller and she occasionally felt a strange wave passing over her like a poisonous vapor, making her sick. It was in fact reality being shaped after something inexistent, making the very place she was in unstable and as a consequence her very presence in that plane of existence was being bent to fit this odd scenario. She had thrown chairs in the walls and tried to break through them with heavy objects lying around in the room, but the only thing she had succeeded to do had been to rip apart the wallpaper and to make herself breath harder and harder. The air seemed to be getting thinner. At that very moment another wave passed over her and her oxygen deprived mind saw the room becoming longer and longer and she began walking towards what she believed was a light at the end of a tunnel. But there was no light, no door, even her walking was stagnated.  
  
Another wave hit her, actually knocking her off her feet and the room started spinning. Or was it just the floor? She couldn't tell. She closed her eyes and put her hand on her face, but her stomach could still feel the spinning of her body. Her forehead was wet and her lower lip was bleeding after she had bitten on it too hard. As she opened her eyes, the room itself had evolved into some tall monstrous death trap, spinning her on a wooden wheel of misfortune. As her eyes half-closed, she heard a muffled sound, but ignored it as just another figment of her imagination.  
  
"Buffy! Buffy!" Liam yelled and yelled running from one room to another, but finding nothing. Thinking that perhaps there was some secret room he was incapable of reaching through doors he broke the glass of a 'in case of fire' box and pulled out an ax from it. He started hacking away at the walls, occasionally using the hammer when the walls would not break under the ax's blade. He came across a couple of concrete walls, but he did not give up, but stubbornly went on.  
  
As he hacked away at one particular wall, the ax suddenly electrified and flew out of his hands and into the floor. Guessing there was more to that wall than met the eye, he rose the hammer and began hitting it with all his strength. A small hole soon formed in it and through it Liam saw Buffy laying on the floor, subjected to the torment of what he guessed were inner demons. He continued to hammer away until the hole was big enough for him to pass through. To his surprise, inside the room, he saw its door wide open, as he had left it during his many desperate attempts at finding the slayer and wondered if she had been there all the time and because of his previous rush, he hadn't seen her.  
  
"Buffy," he whispered as he kneeled beside her.  
  
Still dizzy and sick, the slayer opened her eyes, but could barely see anything in front of her. She could feel the spinning had stopped, the waves were gone and the monster had returned to its den far away from the plane of reality.  
  
"Are you feeling all right?' Liam asked putting his hands on her shoulders. He was taken by surprise when Buffy suddenly rose off the floor and kissed him. A short sweet kiss.  
  
"Monster gone," she murmured still out of it before putting her head on his shoulder and losing consciousness.  
  
"Monster gone," Liam repeated gently caressing her hair for a moment before catching himself, brushing off whatever feelings had been roaming around in his mind and rising the slayer off the floor in his arms. He headed back upstairs.  
  
"What a darling little girl," Billy said as he sat Dawn up on a chair. "Don't you think so, Dana?" the slayer looked at the girl with a mixture of confusion - like she didn't know what she was looking at - and remembrance - she had been small once.  
  
"Who...," Dawn struggled to articulate the word as she stared at Billy.  
  
"Me?" Billy asked with a creepy smile on his lips. "I'm just your friendly upstairs neighbor."  
  
"Slayer," Dawn said staring back at Dana who was now struggling against her restraints violently, not carrying that she was hurting herself badly in the process.  
  
"Yes, slayer," Billy nodded as he shot Dana an indifferent glance. "Very bad slayer," he added. "You're not like the rest of them, are you?"  
  
"Rest," Dawn repeated and shook her head.  
  
"I thought so," Billy said satisfied. "If you were some big shot hero from the future you would've been older and well...far more coherent."  
  
"Real," she touched her chest with her hands.  
  
"You're real," Billy said pensively before turning back towards Dana, who was making far too much noise for his liking, and hitting her hard twice, once in the stomach and another time in the face. "Stay the fuck still or I'll be forced to break both your damn legs," he told her in a harsh tone before adding, towards Dawn, in a much lighter tone: "I told you: very bad slayer. Now what were you saying about being real?"  
  
Dawn didn't say a word, just stared at him with an air of suspicion.  
  
"Giving me the silent treatment?" Billy said as one of his hands clutched the edge of a shelf. The shelf broke instantly. "Ops." He wanted nothing more than to break that little neck of hers, to crush her, but he suspected that there was more to this little girl than met the eye. And he meant to find out what exactly that was. "I'll be right back," he told her before leaving the room and closing the door with a key.  
  
Dawn jumped off the chair and neared Dana looking at her curiously. She reached out a hand towards her and touched her bruised face. For a moment, Dana's gaze seemed to soften and a crooked strange smile appeared on her lips. Then just as suddenly she lunged out at her and bit down hard on one of her fingers. Dawn let out a scream and Billy rushed back inside the room and pulled her away from Dana. He shot the slayer a furious look and was about to hit her again, when Dawn murmured:  
  
"Evil," her eyes glowed white and Dana let out a scream of pain as both her legs suddenly snapped.  
  
"Good girl," Billy said with a smile as he set Dawn back down on the chair and pulled out what he had went out for, a raggedy old doll with one eye and dirty blond hair. "Look what I found." Dawn took the doll in her hands enthusiastically and hugged it to her chest. "I thought you'd like it." He pulled out a handkerchief and wrapped it around her bleeding finger and kissed the bandaged wound when he was done. "All better now?"  
  
"Better," Dawn said with a smile nodding.  
  
"Has Makhran been to see you tonight? Because I think I saw him...You know who Makhran is, right?" he wanted to explain who he was, when Dawn stopped him chuckling.  
  
"Makhran. Stupid... demon."  
  
"It's amazing how you can read my mind," Billy said with a smile.  
  
"What happened?" Wesley asked when Liam entered the room carrying Buffy, who was mumbling incoherently something about vampires and dances, in his arms.  
  
"I don't know. I found her like this. In a room I checked about ten times," Liam said as he laid her down in his bed.  
  
"We heard a lot of banging coming from downstairs, did you run into trouble?" Willow asked as she put a last bandage on William's chest.  
  
"No, that was just me breaking down the walls with an ax and a hammer," Liam explained.  
  
"Oh," that was definitely not the answer she had been waiting for.  
  
"Has she been this incoherent since you found her?" Wesley asked nearing the unconscious slayer and taking note of the protective way Liam had laid a hand on her waist.  
  
"More or less," Liam said staring at Buffy. "At one point she even started singing. She has a horrible voice."  
  
"Well she doesn't have a fever," Wesley concluded after touching the slayer's forehead. "Maybe she just needs some sleep."  
  
"I hope so," Liam said. "Have you searched for the little one?"  
  
"We didn't have the time," Wesley tried to excuse himself.  
  
"It was a stupid idea anyway," Willow backed him up.  
  
"Then let's go look for her," Liam said standing up and rubbing his face tiredly.  
  
William blinked several times before he realized where he was. America. The future. A hotel. It had all seemed like a long nightmare, but here he was, once again, awakening to the reality of that very nightmare.  
  
"What...," he grunted. "Hand," he suddenly remembered.  
  
"Two hands actually," Willow said cheerful, happy he was awake. "One got away, one's squash," she pointed towards the bloody mass Liam had turned the killer hand into.  
  
"Hello," a small voice said drawing their attention away from the freshly awakened William.  
  
"Where have you been?" Willow asked worried, nearing Dawn.  
  
"Bathroom," she said with a smile. "Lost."  
  
"At least someone knows how to take care of himself," Liam noted with a smile dropping down into an armchair, tired.  
  
"And this was only our first night here," Willow pointed out as Dawn cuddled into William's arms.  
  
"That's a pretty doll," William noticed what she was holding in her arms. He frowned when he saw her bandaged finger.  
  
"Rat," the girl said with a faint smile. Billy had told her she had to return to them and that she shouldn't mention anything about him or the evil girl to anyone. She had promised to come back the next day and see him again. And she intended to keep her promise.  
  
End Part 6 


	8. Hyperion Falling I

Part 7

Hyperion Falling I

"Surprise!" Hallie said with a smile as she, James and a still bleeding Ronald teleported straight into the room Billy and Dana were in.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Billy asked frowning staring at the door Dawn had disappeared out through only minutes before.

"The maniacal teenagers downstairs were about to find us. We had to go somewhere, so I thought we could check up on you," Hallie shrugged.

"That damn little...when I get my hands on him I'm going to rip his fucking lungs out and break every bone in his body!" Ronald said still holding his wrist trying to stop the bleeding.

"You mean hand, Ronald. You've only got one left, remember?" Hallie reminded him and the doctor shot her a furious look. "Oh, don't be so touchy."

"What happened?" Billy asked looking at Ronald's wrist.

"One of the kiddies squashed his hand," Hallie said chuckling. "And what's that all about?" she asked when she noticed both of Dana's legs were broken and she was gagged to stop her from screaming.

"She misbehaved," Billy simply said. "But don't worry, with her healing powers she'll be walking by morning."

"You mean crawling," Hallie said dryly. "You're overestimating slayer healing powers I'm afraid."

"Oh, no, I repositioned her bones, and they're almost completely glued back together. The reattachment of the bones though is quite painful so I had to shut her up somehow," Billy explained.

"Weren't you just the perfect gentlemen," Hallie said with a disgusted look on her face. "If I didn't have bigger fish to fry I'd dismember you this second."

"I'm sure you would," Billy only said before telling them: "You can't stay here."

"Why? Are you expecting company? Or are there more dreadful things you want to do to that slayer? Because if you do I wouldn't mind watching," James said looking at Dana with a smile.

"Just leave," Billy pointed towards the door.

"Fine, there's enough room in this hotel for all of us," Hallie said rolling her eyes and headed out the door, followed by Ronald and James. When they were in the hallway, the demon let out angrily: "That pipsqueak, who does he think he is?"

"Well, if it's any comfort to you while he was torturing the slayer, we managed to wound one of the brats and get the slayer lost downstairs," James pointed out.

"Good point, James," Hallie said with a smile. "I mean, what has he done so far?"

Dawn played with her doll on William's bed, smiling at her and petting her dirty hair. The slayer paced in the room, contemplating their situation, while Liam watched her from his bed with a tired look on his face. William followed her movements as well with one of his hands wrapped protectively around Dawn's shoulders. The watcher-in-training was slumped in an armchair while Willow stood on the edge of William's bed, looking like a school girl paying attention in class.

"So there's at least three other people in this building besides us," Buffy said. "One of them can dismember at will, but he lost a hand. It was a he, right?" she looked towards Liam. She hadn't really had much time during her brief encounter with the killer hands to analyze them.

"It looked like a man's hand," the teenager looked towards the bloody mass on the night stand hesitantly.

"It was a man's hand," William said with a definite tone. He, unlike the others, had had enough time to analyze every strip of skin on the hand while it had cut him with the knife.

"Okay, good. There's the dismembering guy and a...what-cha-ma-call-it," Buffy looked at Wesley who rolled his eyes and said:

"A warlock or a witch or a demon with magical powers."

"That's narrowing it down," the slayer said frustrated.

"We know there are three. Two men, one woman. We just don't know what's what," Willow pointed out.

"At least it's nothing large," Liam said putting his hands under his head. "The shape on the floor was human size. And I doubt a demon would be wearing women's heels."

"You'd be surprised," Wesley said with a smile.

"One thing's for sure, we all have to stick together," Buffy said. "That means we're all staying in one room."

"That's for the best," Liam admitted. "You're always welcomed in my bed," he added with a mischievous smile.

"Right," Buffy met his innocent gaze with a frown. "You better watch your mouth, ponytail, or you're sleeping on the floor tonight."

"Whatever you say, darling," he said closing his eyes.

"Would you stop calling me that?" Buffy asked frustrated.

"Of course, darling," Liam said with a smile.

"You're being so childish," the slayer said annoyed. "You guys take Liam's bed - since his royal highness doesn't feel like getting up - and Willow, me and Dawn will take William's. Is that okay with you?"

"Of course," Wesley said and William nodded in approval.

"If someone could just please help me up," William said and Wesley and Buffy came to his side gently rising him off the bed. He winced in pain a few times, but he eventually made it okay to the other bed. Buffy brushed away the hair from his face and smiled at him. "I'm sorry about the bloody bed sheets," he whispered.

"It's okay, that much we can take from the other room," Buffy assured him.

Dawn got out of William's bed and went back into his arms in the other bed.

"You have to sleep with Buffy and Willow," he tried to make her understand.

"No. Spike," she said hugging him.

"That's it!" Wesley suddenly realized. "William the Bloody. Spike. He's it!"

"Do I turn into a hero? Like him?" William pointed towards the already sleeping Liam.

"Not that I know of," Wesley shook his head. "You'll kill two slayers and fall love with a crazy vampire named Drusilla who's going to be your sire."

"But the demon...he said I'll fight for my soul one day, because of a woman," William reminded him.

"Then that is part of a future I have yet to know," Wesley didn't dismiss the idea.

"Hopefully, it is part of some future," William sighed.

"Good Spike," Dawn assured him with a little frown that made her face look even more adorable.

"I believe you, little one," William told her with a smile and laid a sweet kiss on her forehead and she snuggled in his arms.

"I'll just sleep in the armchair," Wesley offered so Dawn could sleep in William's arms.

"Are you sure you don't mind?" William asked gratefully.

"No, I've slept in worse conditions," he had after all spent most of his life in dormitories and not all had been as cushy as the ones the Watcher's Council provided its future elite with.

"I'll stand guard. I can't sleep anyway," Buffy told them, urging Willow to go to sleep. "Oh, sheets," she remembered and quickly ran in the other room and came back with a bundle of sheets, throwing them Willow's way. Putting aside the bloody ones William had been covered in, Willow wrapped herself in the clean sheets and almost instantly fell asleep. As Wesley did the same, Buffy continued to pace in the room, lost in her own thoughts, looking down at her shoes and analyzing and reanalyzing their situation from all perspectives, occasionally glancing towards the sleeping teenagers. After a while, when her racing thoughts had slowed down, she realized she wasn't the only one still awake. William, either because of his wounds, either because he had slept for far too long that day, didn't seem to able to close an eye either.

"What are you thinking about?" William asked when her gaze settled on him and he knew the fact he was still awake had finally occurred to her.

"A plan. How we could get out of here alive," Buffy answered in a hushed tone, not to disturb the others. "And then how we could destroy that Mak-something demon."

"Maybe it's best if we leave this place in the morning," William suggested as the slayer neared his side of the bed and sat down cross-legged in front of him so they could hear each other better.

"Running wouldn't do us any good. Only maybe buy us more time," Buffy said shaking her head. "But who says they won't attack us directly once they see we want to leave the hotel? We have to beat the lackeys if we want to take on the big boss."

"Aren't you scared at all?" William asked fascinated by her immense courage.

"It doesn't really matter, does it?" she shrugged. "I'm here and there's no other way out of this jam then going through these things. Besides, even if I do make it home after this little adventure, this is exactly what's waiting there for me too. Except there I have a nice stuffy Englishman who always points me the right way."

"You're the bravest woman I've ever met," he confessed with a smile.

"Don't you feel threatened? Most guys are," Buffy admitted. "When I was defenseless every guy in my highschool would've given his right arm to be my boyfriend and now they all look at me as if I'm a big freak just because I can kick their collective asses with a hand tied behind my back."

"No, I don't feel threatened at all," he told her. "Actually I think it's quite wonderful. You are like a modern Joan of Ark."

"Well, I wouldn't say that...," Buffy said obviously flattered by his comment.

"A warrior woman, as tough as any man," he was already writing poems about her in his mind.

"Tougher," she said chuckling.

"I know I'm not brave, I can't even believe all this nonsense about me turning into a vampire and saving the world someday," he confessed.

"I think you could be a great hero someday if you try hard enough," she spoke in the most convincing of tones. "Anyone can be one. A little superstrength, a healing ability, sure it helps - maybe makes it almost too easy for me- but all you really need to be a hero is a little belief in yourself. And that much I got."

"For some reason, him I can picture as a hero," he gestured with his head towards Liam. "Then again I can also picture him as a blood thirsty vampire."

"I can definitely see his future in the blood sucking business," the slayer agreed chuckling. "So what do you do back home? Do you have like a school or something that you go to?"

"I'm home taught. My mother's health isn't the best and I'm all she has in the world," he explained. "I like to write poems and I hope to be published one day."

"Really?" Buffy said smiling. "Tell me one of your poems."

William prepared to recite one of his creations to her, when Liam grunted and turning towards them and half-standing up from the bed told William:

"You speak one word and I swear I'll hurt you. I'm in no mood for bloody poems and you, Joan," he looked at Buffy. "Go the hell to sleep if he's awake. There's no need for the both of you to be up. And don't make me stand up from this bed and put to sleep myself."

"Grouchy, aren't we?" Buffy said amused not moving from the floor. Liam threw himself back on the bed, sighing exasperated. Dawn stirred in William's arms, bothered by the bed's sudden movement. William looked at Liam with a frown.

"Go to bed," Liam told the slayer in a commanding voice.

"Make me," Buffy replied holding his gaze. She didn't expect him to suddenly jump over William and Dawn, land on other side of the bed smoothly and grab her by the arm, rise her up in his arms and sweep her off to her bed. She struggled in his arms, trying to free herself. "Let me go!" she yelled at him and he told her with a smile:

"Sure, darling," and dropped her in her bed from over a foot above it. She gave him an annoyed look and threw a pillow after him, but it instead hit the sleeping Wesley, startling him awake. "Is that how you want it then?" Liam picked up the fallen pillow and threw it back at her, hitting the sleeping Willow with it. The redhead woke up and still half-asleep looked around confused wondering what was happening. Seizing the occasion, Buffy stole her pillow and threw it back at Liam. A full scale pillow fight erupted and no one was spared, not even the wounded William.

"Oh, look, they're having a great time," Ronald scoffed as he looked through the mirror Halfrek had turned into a window to the teenagers' room.

"I'm getting hungry," James said staring at Ronald's bloody wrist.

"Don't even think about it," the doctor told him with a frown, hiding his wrist in one of the pockets of his jacket.

"Do I look like a seven eleven?" Hallie asked as she observed the teenagers pillow fighting in their room. "You're a free vamp, New York's a big city, go kill someone," she suggested. "It's not like I'm keeping you here."

"Fine," James stood up. "But if anything happens...let me know."

"Whatever," Hallie who was deep in thought waved her hand at him in a dismissing gesture.

"I wish you'd let me eat one of the brats," he told her staring at the mirror.

"You'd be dead now if you tried," Ronald pointed out. "They're sticking together. You stood a chance when they were split up, but now..."

"You are only a vampire, James. And unfortunately the slayer eats the likes of you for breakfast," Hallie pointed out and the defeated James left the room.

It was morning, barely after sunrise, when Dawn sneaked out of William's arms and out of the room. Everyone was asleep. Wesley, who had been assigned the last watch of the night, had fallen asleep in his armchair while looking over the Hyperion's register. She made her way to the next floor where, in the dark corridor, she stumbled over James who was just coming in from a night of hunting. He looked at her with a surprised, but victorious smile. He neared her, trying not to scare her into running away.

"Pretty little girl," he hummed as he closed in on her. "I won't hurt you. I just want you to meet a few friends of mine. What the...," he looked at her confused when her eyes started glowing brightly in the dark. He took a few steps back just as the glow engulfed the girl's entire face and a beam of bright energy shot out of her eyes, setting James on fire. The vampire screamed and ran down the corridor aflame banging on Billy's door, but he wouldn't answer, so instead the burning James ran up the stairs and up two floors until he reached Halfrek and Ronald. Halfrek looked at James with a frown and quickly turned out the flames that were eating at his flesh.

"Stay out too long?" Ronald asked amused.

"No, it's the girl...," half his skin was covered in severe burns, his clothes had melted on his body in some regions. But the skin was already begin to heal itself.

"The slayer?" Halfrek asked confused.

"No, the little one. She was wondering down the hallway on the second floor. I thought my luck had changed," James shrugged. "I wanted to grab her and bring her up here, but she...started glowing and then she set me on fire with her eyes."

"With her eyes?" Halfrek was skeptical.

"Yes, with her glowing damn eyes," James remembered the girl with a shiver.

"It seems our demon benefactor has been keeping us in the dark," Ronald stated what was on all of their minds.

"Well, yes, the girl...," Hallie thought about all of her encounters with Dawn - the one she had known - and of the events that preceded her appearance in the slayer's life. Makhran had unhinged them from time only moments before their deaths, so Hallie had caught more than two years of Dawn's life. "She was a key. I remember Anyanka mentioning it. A hell goddess tried to open the gates to another dimension with her blood. If she was subjected to only half the spell that transformed her into a human being, that means she can probably use some of the energy she was made out of as a weapon. Interesting."

"I just got torched alive and all you can say is interesting?" James scoffed.

"On the contrary, my fine roasted friend," Hallie said with a smile. "The time for games is over, it's time we hunt down those little brats and end their miserable lives."

"Now there's a plan I like," Ronald stated with an evil smile.

"And they believed you?" Billy asked Dawn as he gave her a chocolate bar. The little girl nodded as Dana watched her hungrily from the corner of the room.

"Rat," Dawn repeated chuckling holding up her bandaged finger. "Big rat," she said in a more angry tone staring at Dana.

"I'm afraid that's Dana for you, always a bad bad girl," Billy said with a smile. "But what can we do? Someone needs to kill Makhran and that won't me or you, sweetheart. You're too young to be playing with sharp things. However, you are not too young to open up a little dimension."

"Not young," Dawn repeated and made a wide gesture with her hand. "Older than the world."

"I hope I'll look as good as you at that age," he told her chuckling.

"Billy young. Still," she assured him with a smile.

"Now, I wanted to talk to you about your friends," Billy said. "You see, they are all deep down so sad."

"Sad," Dawn repeated with a saddened gaze. "Why?"

"Well, two of them are going to turn into monsters and that's enough to make anyone sad, don't you think?" he asked in a compassionate tone. "And the poor slayer...she just breaks my heart. A girl like her, the horrors she will have to face. It would be best if she were free, don't you think?"

"Free," Dawn nodded.

"And do you know how we can free them all?" Billy asked and the little girl shook her head. "We make their hearts stop beating, and then they fly away and are happy forever," he made a gesture with his hands as if something had risen from his chest and flown away. "You want them to be happy forever, don't you?" he asked and Dawn nodded.

"How could you have fallen asleep?!" Buffy asked Wesley incredulously.

"I just dozed off for two minutes, when I opened my eyes she was gone," Wesley explained.

"We should've told her not to wonder off anymore, but we didn't...," Willow remembered.

"Let's go find her," William said standing up from the bed, still a bit out of it, but feeling much better than he had the previous night.

"We'll split in two groups. Liam and Wesley you check the hotel, me, Willow and William are gonna check outside," Buffy said. "Maybe she got hungry and went out on the streets."

"Oh god, I hope not," Willow said and they all headed out of the room. When they reached the front door of the Hyperion, it was locked. Buffy tried to force it open, but no matter how hard she tried, she wasn't even able to make it budge.

"Something's wrong here," the slayer said under her breath.

"Show's over, kiddies," a female voice echoed in the hotel. "Take a bow and prepare to die."

End Part 7


	9. Hyperion Falling II

Author's note: I know it's been a while since I've updated this story, but I promise I will finish it sooner or later.

Part 8

Hyperion Falling II

The demon's voice echoed in the entire building reaching even the room Billy was in. He looked at the door and frowned. What the hell did they think they were doing? A direct approach was a terrible idea no matter how young the future heroes were. Dawn gave him a questioning look.

"You stay here," Billy told her and caressed her hair for a moment. "Uncle Billy has some naughty monsters to kill," he headed for the door. He gave Dana a warning glance as he headed out. Alone, Dawn balanced her legs over the edge of the table she was sitting on peacefully enjoying her chocolate. Dana struggled to free herself now that Billy wasn't there to notice her attempts at an escape. Dawn looked at her with a frown and her eyes suddenly glowed.

"Bad Dana!" a piece of wood suddenly detached itself from the floor and started hitting the slayer, beating her to a bloody pulp. "Billy said Dana shouldn't move. If Dana moves, Dana gets hurt."

"Splitting up was a seriously bad idea," Buffy muttered as she tried to realize where the voice had come from. All windows had been blocked and all light that had previously been filtrating itself through them was now completely shut out. They were sitting ducks in the dark.

"Yeah, bad, bad, idea," Willow agreed as she looked around nervously. A hand crossed the darkened hall behind her, but she only caught a glimpse of a movement in the corner of her eye. "What was that?"

"What was what?" Buffy asked spinning around. Nothing. Only silence. That was probably the most disturbing thing. That eerie you-don't-know-what-will-happen-next silence. Then, nails gliding across the wooden floors and the hand moving in the darkness once more.

"There!" William pointed towards a corner and threw a heavy registry book after the hand. It hit the floor with an empty sound and a cloud of dust rose out of it like a poisoned mushroom growing in the dark. An evil laughter broke the silence and the slayer looked around again with a frown. Whatever it was, she was sure it wasn't in the room…something else was down there. The missing hand and something more. Arms suddenly reached out through the darkness and grabbed Willow from behind. The young girl shrieked in horror as she was being pulled away by what appeared to be a half-burnt corpse.

"Shh, darling, this will hurt only…," James smirked. "Well, to tell you the truth, it will probably hurt a lot," he admitted as he plunged his teeth into her neck. Buffy instantly reacted to the redhead's screams and grabbing a chair she crashed it into one of the windows in an attempt to shed some light into the room. Unfortunately, it was dark outside as well and New York didn't look like New York anymore.

"Oh, oh, I think little Dorothy finally realized she's not in Kansas anymore," Hallie's voice noted amused. A second crashing noise drew Buffy's attention to the hotel's front desk where Willow was struggling to free herself from James' grasp with William hitting the vampire repeatedly with a piece of wood in the back in an attempt to weaken him.

"Not like that!" Buffy yelled toward William. "Shove it in his heart!" she said referring to the piece of wood the Englishman had been using to beat the vampire with.

"Pardon me?" William asked confused.

"Oh, haven't you read any books about vampires?" Buffy asked as she neared him, but William managed to shove the piece of wood in the vampire's heart by accident before she got to them. James turned into a pile of dust.

"Oh," William let out finally understanding what she had wanted him to do. Willow was breathing heavily and her neck was bleeding, but she would live. James hadn't managed to drink too much of her blood before he had been killed.

"One down, go us," Willow said with a faint smile as she tried to stand up, but found that she was quite weakened because of the attack and she collapsed on the floor.

On the first floor, Halfrek observed the fight - that from her angle was set in illuminated surroundings - through a magical hole in the floor like the kind she had used before. From there, her voice echoed downstairs and in the entire hotel.

"Poor James. Never was the brightest crow in this nest though," Hallie admitted to herself as the vampire pulverized before her eyes. The door to the room she was in suddenly slammed open and an angry Billy pointed an accusing finger at Hallie:

"You! What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Just playing the game we were sent here to play. If you got a problem with that, I suggest you take it up with Makhran. I'm sure he'd be willing to listen to reason," she replied coolly. Billy hesitated for a second and Hallie immediately caught on. "Unless of course you wouldn't want Makhran to know certain things…"

"Like what?" Billy asked rising his eyebrows in what he wanted to seem as amusement.

"Like the few details he missed about the girl. Hell, little Dawnie might as well be the battery that'll help Mahkran leave his atemporal cocoon whenever he feels like it instead of being as limited as he is now," Hallie told him.

"What?" he tried to sound surprised.

"Don't play dumb with me, Billy, I'm not a little henchman you can fool with your incredibly bad acting skills. Your plans changed like mine did when I found about the potential of this little situation," she said bluntly. "But for now, they have to be disposed of before they get over puberty and decide to be heroes instead of overly melodramatic teenagers," she added looking down at the adolescents through the ceiling.

"You have a too big a mouth, you know that? Like all women," Billy said as he picked up a chair and raised it in the air and hit the distracted Hallie over the back with it. It smashed to pieces and Hallie – unable to stop the blow – fell to the floor. When she looked up at Billy, her face had changed to her demonic features and she muttered:

"That was such a bad idea."

They walked down the corridor making sure their steps couldn't be heard by whoever was in that hotel beside them. They were unaware of what was happening downstairs.

"Dawn!" Liam suddenly yelled and Wesley spun around alarmed and put his hands on his mouth.

"Do you want everyone to hear us?" the watcher-in-training asked in a whisper.

"Do you want us to search every room in this blasted place looking for her?" Liam replied and shoved him away. "And don't you put your hands on me again boy or I'll make sure I break them next time," he added on a threatening tone. "Bloody Englishman," he muttered as he continued down the hallway.

"I'm older than you!" Wesley yelled as he ran up to him.

"Dawn!" Liam shouted again. "Come out, you little troublemaker! Dawn!"

"We're going to die," Wesley said under his breath. "We're going to die of a very painful death."

"Would you just stop wailing and start searching?" Liam suddenly turned his attention toward him.

"Dawn!" he yelled as a reply to his comment. Satisfied that he had taken on the task he had set out for him, Liam started opening every door in their way in hope of finding the girl. The seventh door proved to be lucky. They found Dawn perched up on a table, swinging her legs over the side of the table and hugging a raggedy doll to her chest whispering something in its ear.

"And where the bloody hell did you think you were going?" Liam asked the girl, putting his hands on his hips and then called out to Wesley: "I found her!" The watcher-in-training, who had lost Liam three rooms ago, made his way toward the room the voice was coming from. Dawn looked up at them with a confused gaze.

"Who's that?" Wesley asked as he noticed the tied up slayer lying on the floor.

"Do you think someone else might have been sent with us?" Liam asked crouching down next to Dana.

"I don't remember there being someone else," Wesley said after he thought back to Makhran's atemporal cocoon. "Maybe they're fighting among themselves. It's very common between demons."

"She doesn't look like a demon," Liam pointed out.

"Many have the ability to take on human shapes," he explained. "We should take her downstairs nonetheless. See what the others think."

"Who? The pansy poet? Or that frightened redhead?" he asked looking up at him with an amused gaze.

"Like Buffy," Wesley reminded him of the slayer.

"As if she'll know what to do. I'm afraid, boyo, that you're the only one in this merry band of future heroes who actually knows a thing or two about these things," he told him as he rose Dana to her feet. The slayer, still shaken, managed to stand on her now healed legs. Her movement however made Dawn frown. Her eyes glowed brightly and the door to the room suddenly shut closed.

"Dana, sit!" she ordered her and the slayer fell back to the floor with a hard thud, breaking a finger in the process.

"Now what in the name of Mike is going on in here?" Liam asked looking from Dawn to Dana.

"Well, at least we know the girl's name," Wesley said. "Dana," he crouched down next to her. "Is your name Dana?" he asked her and the girl nodded. He gave her a quick once over and noticed the dried red blood on her clothes. "I think she might be human. And by how fast these wounds are closing she might be a bit more than just human," he inspected her broken finger that seemed to already be healing.

"What's that suppose to mean?" he asked confused.

"She might be another slayer," the watcher-in-training explained as he stood up. "We have to take her downstairs. Buffy will know for sure if she's a slayer or not."

"What? They can smell each other? Like dogs?" Liam asked rising his eyebrows.

"Something like that," Wesley accepted that theory because he didn't feel like explaining the whole process to him. "Could you…," he gestured for him to pick up Dana.

"What about bright-eyes over there?" Liam looked back at Dawn whose eyes were still glowing.

"Let me," Wesley made his way to the little girl and told her gently: "Dawn, we have to go downstairs. We're taking the nice lady with us. Do you want to come and guard her?"

"But Billy…" Dawn looked at Dana undecided.

"What has she been doing this whole time? Playing games with the enemy?" Liam asked as he took Dana in his arms. The girl started struggling violently in his arms until he had to let her stand on her own two feet. "If you don't want to be carried, girl, say so." Dana only gave him a furious look, but didn't say or do anything. She was still tied up.

"Come on," Wesley urged Dawn and held out his hand for her to take it. "Don't you want to go see William?"

"Spike!" it suddenly dawned on her that she hadn't seen him in a few hours. Her eyes returned to their normal color and she hopped off the table.

"Yes, yes, Spike, now move," Liam told her and gestured for Dana to move out of the room too. The slayer couldn't do it as her legs were still tied up. "Would you let me carry you then?" he asked her politely.

"No more strings…no more hands…," Dana muttered and with a huge effort managed to break out of her restrains. Dawn looked back at the slayer and for an instant her eyes glowed. Fearful, Dana did nothing but quietly follow Liam and Wesley out.

"Did you find it?" Buffy asked as she looked up at William who was perched up on a table and fiddling with a bunch of wires.

"I…believe so," William said and stared down at her. "I just don't understand what exactly I'm suppose to do."

"I'm not exactly sure what you're suppose to do either," the slayer admitted. "I'm not really an electrician. I remember when my dad fixed the lights one time. There was this wire…"

"There are more than ten wires here," William pointed out frustrated. "You should be up here trying to make something of them. I really have no idea of what I'm doing or what exactly all these things are."

"I can't reach it," Buffy pointed out. "It's one of the disadvantages of being pleasantfully petite."

"You speak French?" William asked with a smile.

"They could've put the lights out with magic, you know," Willow said as she stared at her feet laying over the edge of the table. Her neck was now bandaged with a piece of Buffy's shirt, but she still felt a little weakened.

"I know," Buffy admitted. "I just don't want to rule out this possibility. Maybe they did it the old fashion way, maybe one of them's like a demon electrician or something."

"The only thing this'll end with is William electrocuting himself," Willow said.

"Electro-what?" William asked with a frown, not liking the sound of it.

"And I think something's really wrong with this hotel," Willow added on a grim tone.

"You figure?" Buffy asked annoyed. "I started thinking something was wrong with it when it dawned on me that there were no rats in it. And the fact the sheets of the rooms we stayed in were so clean. Like someone knew we'd pick exactly those rooms. Oh and let's not forget the evil hand from hell and the disappearing Dawn trick. Or that wonderful view over there," she pointed toward the window she had smashed and that now showed a foggy, dark, fuzzy, unclear world of nothingness. "So stop playing crypto-girl and try thinking of something constructive."

"Like wiring?" Willow asked rising her eyebrows.

"Is it the red one? I think it's a red one. Might be blue though. I can't really tell," William drew the slayer's attention back to him. Buffy sighed and stood up on the table. Just as she did however a loud thump was heard from upstairs. More than a thump actually, more like the walls crumbling on top of each other above them. The heavy chandelier rocked back and forth for 10 seconds before turning back to its initial position.

"What…" Buffy started, but couldn't even finish her sentence as a heavy thump was heard again. Then suddenly something crashed to the lower level through the ceiling. Buffy couldn't tell what it was. All she managed to see was that it was huge, alive and moving. Heavy breathing filled the air and the monster that had collapsed downstairs split into two, each piece scrambling to another corner.

"Buffy! Where are you, girl?" Liam's voice yelled through the darkness and was shortly followed by sounds of footsteps. The slayer sighed relieved. At least they'd have help beating whatever had just landed there. "We found the little one. Why is it so bleedin' dark in here?"

Dawn's eyes glowed in the darkness for two seconds and light suddenly filled the room, making Buffy, William and Willow squint their eyes from the sudden exposure to its brightness. When they managed to clear their sight however they were surprised by what they saw. Wesley and Liam had indeed found Dawn, but there was also a girl with them that Buffy had a strange feeling about the moment she laid eyes on her. Hiding in a corner was a man with no hands and a hand was half way up one of the legs of the table William, Buffy and Willow were sitting on. On the floor, both bruised and separated by a few good feet were a young man and a grotesque female demon.

"Well, well, what do we have here?" Liam asked surprised by the crowd.

"Dawn, precious, come to uncle Billy and make him all better. It's time we save your friends," Billy told the little girl on a pleading tone. Liam looked at Dawn and then at Billy with a confused look and when the girl wanted to head toward him, the Irishman held her back.

"Wait just a bloody moment, what do you think…" but he didn't have a chance to finish his phrase as Dawn's eyes glowed and he was thrown back into a wall.

"Oh boy," Willow muttered.

"That's it, little darling, come to your uncle Billy," he said on a satisfied tone as he stood up.

"Dawn, get away from him!" Buffy requested of her, but she didn't listen.

The little girl leaned down toward Billy and energy glowed around her and she passed it onto him, healing his wounds.

"How is she doing all that?" Willow asked confused.

"I don't know, but we have to get her away from him," Buffy said jumping off the table and nearing Dawn. "Come on," she extended her hand toward her. Dawn looked at her hand and then at Billy.

"Remember what we talked about in the room? How you could save them all?" Billy asked her and she nodded. "I think it's time you save them."

"Yes. Save," Dawn said with an innocent smile and then turned back toward Buffy. The slayer flew back into the table, breaking it and knocking Willow and William off of it, then her body – like a doll of rags – flew into the ceiling and then back down, shattering the wooden floors.

"Dawn," William jumped in between Buffy and Dawn, like that could actually stop her from continuing to throw the slayer through every solid thing she could find. "Stop this. Please, there's no need to hurt her." But Dawn ignored him and Buffy continued to fly into things. Liam grabbed her body – she was now unconscious and bleeding – and held it firmly in his arms as if his weight would be enough to beat Dawn's force. But it was not and Liam, along with Buffy, found himself crashing from floor to ceiling and back again. The remaining hand meanwhile had crept up behind Willow and was doing its best to choke the life out of her. Wesley attempted to free her, but he wasn't having much luck with it. Billy smiled back at Hallie victorious. The demon, angered, stood up and grabbing the leg of the shattered table attempted to hit Dawn across the face with it, but the piece of wood just wouldn't go any closer than fifteen inches from the girl. It was like an elastic force field had been created around her. Billy started laughing by now. Annoyed, Hallie hit the wood against the force field as fast and as hard as she could until the wood bounced out of her hands and flew across the room imbedding itself directly into Ronald's chest. The doctor let out a scream of pain. Hallie looked back at him and told him, a bit half-hearted:

"My bad."

"Dawn, you're a good little girl, leave Buffy alone," William pleaded with Dawn, but the little girl didn't look his way, but continued her work. As Ronald went out with a few last twitches and spasms, the hand tied around Willow's neck loosened its grip and then fell dead to the floor. Billy suddenly noticed Dana was there as well.

"What are you doing here?" he asked annoyed. "I thought I told you to wait upstairs. Stupid bitch," he grabbed a hold of a heavy metallic vase and headed toward her threateningly. When he was a foot away from her, Dana muttered, barely audible:

"I wish…" At this, Hallie rose her eyebrows and asked, with a malicious smile:

"What do you wish for Dana?"

"I wish he'd be torn to pieces," she started, her voice sounding clear for the first time in a long long time. "His organs turned to blood and tiny pieces and all his bones grinded into dust and blood and pieces and blood and pieces and blood…blood…," her voice faded back into a whisper and her mind was once again gone.

"Done," Hallie said on the most satisfied tone possible and turned toward Billy. "You see, Billy, I can't use my powers to hurt people – men – unless someone wishes me too. And I'm afraid Dana just made a wish."

"You can't…," Billy started saying with a smug smile, but was cut off by a vein in his temple popping.

"Oops," Hallie said with a wicked smile. Billy's nose started bleeding. "Oops again." Dawn suddenly stopped - Liam and Buffy, a bloody mess, were now lying on the floor - and looked back at Billy with a confused look.

"Dawn. Dawn, help me…," he begged her.

"Oh, I'm afraid not even she can reverse this one, Bill," Hallie told him and clapped her hands happily. What followed was a carnage, all of Billy's blood vessels exploded, painting the floor in red and all his bones were grinded to a white powder until there was nothing left of them. Dana watched the whole process with a maniacal grin on her face.

Dawn observed Billy's decay with wide eyes. She wanted to help him, but knew there was nothing she or her powers could do for him. He was doomed. Kneeling down next to Dawn, William grabbed her in his arms forcefully. At first she struggled a bit, but then melted in his embrace. Billy was gone.

"You have to convince her to heal them," Wesley told William coming up behind him while Hallie and Dana were still distracted by Billy's discomposure.

"She can't…" William said looking down at the frail little girl in his arms.

"Yes, she can. You saw she healed whoever that…thing was. She isn't human, Will," Wesley pointed out.

"Shh, don't talk about her that way," William demanded.

"Try," Wesley insisted. "Buffy might heal herself, but I'm not sure Liam has the strength to survive that kind of beating."

William sighed and looked at the embraced and bloody Liam and Buffy with hesitation, then turning toward Dawn, asked her gently:

"Could you make them better?"

"But…," Dawn looked at the unconscious slayer. "I saved them."

"They're in pain. They're dying," Wesley told her. "That's not saving them, that's destroying them."

"NO!" Dawn protested. "Billy said…"

"Billy was lying," the watcher-in-training assured her. "He wasn't a very nice man."

"But he gave me chocolate," she said confused. "And raggedy mom. My dolly."

"He was nice to you only because he wanted to use you, do you understand that? He wanted you to destroy us so he wouldn't have to do it himself," Wesley tried to explain it to her.

"She doesn't understand such things. She's just a child," William told Wesley, but Dawn sighed and seemed to have understood quite well what the watcher-in-training had been telling him.

"Dawn make Buffy better. Buffy…Buffy, my sister," little Dawn said in realization as if a broken memory had suddenly been mended and neared the fallen slayer and Liam. A light emanated from her body and she passed it on to them.

"What do you think you're doing?" Hallie asked with a frown turning toward them. "We're not finished here."

"Yes, we are," Willow told her boldly, putting herself between the rest and Hallie.

"You little witch. Arrogant even as a child," Hallie smirked.

"You don't scare me. I know you can't use your powers on me," Willow told her. She had paid close attention to the demon's exchange of words with Billy.

"You, maybe not," Hallie said and the chandelier suddenly detached itself from the ceiling right above Willow and fell to the floor. The redhead managed to jump out of its way just in time. "Dana, grab her." The slayer looked a little puzzled at Hallie and the demon shook her head exasperated and started making the walls explode into chunks that headed straight for the redhead.

Meanwhile, Buffy had come to and now stood up slightly shaking her head as if to chase away a sensation.

"What happened?" she asked groggily.

"Well, Dawn tried to kill you, then Liam tried to save you and then Dawn tried to kill you both, then Dawn saved you," Wesley explained in short.

"You know what? My head just hurts really really badly right now so I'm going to stick to the last part of that fascinating explanation and say Dawn saved us," Buffy said and looked around the room. "Where's what's his face?"

"Dead," Wesley replied. "In pieces. Shreds actually. Never seen anything like it before. It was really…disgusting."

"Huh?" the slayer was even more confused now.

"The demon killed him," William said and gave her a short glance before adding: "I'm happy you're awake."

"I'm happy I'm awake too," Buffy said with a smile and noticing Dana added, suddenly realizing what was so familiar about her: "She's a slayer."

"I was right then," Wesley said with a proud smile.

"Yes, you were, now stop talking so goddamn much, you're giving me a headache," Liam said as he came to, his head feeling like it was about to explode.

"We have to stop that thing before it kills Willow," Buffy said jumping to her feet and heading toward Hallie. "Hey, you!"

"Well, well if it isn't Summers junior to the rescue," Hallie said as she turned to her, but before Buffy was able to confront her directly Dana put herself between them and punched the slayer in the face.

"What are you doing!" Buffy asked wiping the blood from the corner of her mouth, but Dana didn't answer her, but hit her again. This time however Buffy returned the favor. Hallie sighed.

"This is becoming absolutely tedious," she mused and snapped her fingers. "The curtain falls, the theatre goes ka-boom, the actors die. End of story," the building began to crumble, brick by brick. "Have fun in the afterlife, darlings. I know my life will be a lot more beautiful without you." She waved at them and wanted to transport herself away, but suddenly realized she couldn't. She tried again. And again. And again. "This isn't right," her eyes turned toward the only person in that room that could have stopped her: Dawn. "You little bitch."

She tried to smack her with the bricks levitating across the room, but nothing could touch the little girl. Her skin was glowing now.

"Just give up already, you're all dead anyway!" Hallie told her exasperated.

"I'll save them," Dawn muttered as she continued to hold Hallie prisoner in the hotel.

"Save them? Are you insane? The building's imploding, you're in another fucking dimension and you think you'll save them?" Hallie laughed. "Get real, Dawnie, not even you are that stupid. Besides you're not doing anything by keeping me here. A little rubble won't kill me. And just in case you're thinking about trying to kill me, forget it, you'd just condemn you and your friends to eternal exile in this place."

"I'll take them home," she whispered and closed her eyes.

"No!" Wesley cried out.

"What is it?" William asked as he ducked to avoid a flying brick.

"She's using her powers too much," he explained.

"I say if she has them, she should use them," Liam said as he hit a piece of the chandelier heading his way with a table leg. "God knows we could use the help."

"You don't understand. She has a very frail balance because of the uncompleted spell," Wesley explained as he tried to make his way to Dawn. "If she uses her powers too much she risks undoing the spell and returning to her original form."

"Original form?" Liam asked confused.

"Pure energy," Wesley said just as Buffy managed to throw Dana on the floor at his feet. "Buffy, stop Dawn!" The slayer looked at him confused for a moment before going after the little girl. She didn't know why she had to stop Dawn, but if Wesley had requested it, he probably had a legitimate reason for it. She rushed toward Dawn, but it was two seconds too late. Hallie's head flew off her shoulders in a snap, Dawn's body rose up in the air and a blinding light washed over the hotel. For one whole minute, the world seemed to vanish and everything was still. Frighteningly still.

Then Buffy felt something wet on her cheek. She reached out with her hand – was it her hand? She couldn't see it, but she could feel it – and touched her cheek. Something else wet fell on her hair followed by something else and something else until all those other things turned into drops of rain, she blinked and suddenly she was in New York once more, standing on an empty spot between two buildings that could have, in another age, hosted something as big as a hotel. Next to her, Wesley was looking up at the sky, but probably he wasn't seeing much as his glasses were covered in rain drops. Willow was the farthest away from them, laying on the ground and looking around confused. Liam was holding a piece of wood – where had it come from? – in his hands and looking like he was about to hit something. William was lying on his knees in the dirt, hugging something to his chest. It was a doll of rags a little girl had called raggedy mom because it reminded her of a woman whose face she remembered although she had never met her. An unknown woman she loved so much and that she had known loved her back even more. Above them there was light. Too much light. Clouds of light. Mountains of light, melting, slowly, second by second, into the rain. Lightening was energy. And Dawn had been energy, but like all things made only of light she, like the lightening, had struck and consumed herself in a dangerous deadly flash.

End Part 8


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